Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency
by SapphoSensei
Summary: The following words are solely for the benefit of those of you who have come in late. If you already are familiar with The Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency, you may skip this brief commercial and proceed directly to the entertainment portion of the program we have for you today. Follow Hayate, Nanoha and Fate as they unravel mysteries as high school girl detectives. (AU)
1. A Simple Introduction

**Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency**

**Starring**

**Nanoha Takamachi**

**Fate T Harlaown**

**Hayate Yagami**

* * *

**Chapter 1: A Simple Introduction for Those Who Haven't a Clue**

The following introduction is only for those of you who somehow have gone through life never having heard of the famous Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency or its three charismatic founders and most famous of sleuths; there is Hayate Yagami, who by her own admission is the brains behind the firm; Nanoha Takamachi who does all the research and takes notes on every case, working closely with their junior investigators showing them the ropes; Finally, there is Fate T Harlaown, strong and agile, their indispensable field operative on active missions.

Oh, did I happen to mention that the three of them are still in high school?

They live on the outskirts of Uminari City, a small city on the pacific coast many miles north of Tokyo. This part of Japan has wide open rural farm lands and mountains too, thus even on an island crowded like Japan, here by Uminari City there are great distances between places, which for a detective agency can lead to even greater problems if none of its investigators can drive, (which since none of the three girls are old enough to have a driver's license, appears the case). On the spur of a moment, and at odd hours of the day and night, Hayate, Nanoha, or Fate can be called out to investigate a clue in a case they are working on. An automobile is a vital necessity for the Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency. Somehow, Hayate always found an answer to what ever dilemma faced the agency. Currently, their transportation problem is solved by Hayate winning a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce for a month in a contest she entered at the Yaki Imo food truck at the local park near their school, (Hayate also got to record her voice chanting "Yaki imoooooooooouuuuu, yaki imooooooouuuuu." If you go their now you can hear her voice being broadcasted over the food truck's loud speakers from blocks away).

As for their H.Q., they use a converted mobile home trailer situated in the Wolkenritter Salvage Yard, which is run by Hayate's cousins, Sigmun, Shamal and Zafiris, plus their little sister Vita who mostly likes to hang out at their headquarters, sometimes helping out on a case. The trailer has a small office in it, a lab with a computer, and equipment that the girls rebuilt from junk that came into the salvage yard. To find their headquarters one has to walk through a maze made out of the piles of discarded household goods, business machines and farm equipment. While the maze seems haphazard, it is actually cleverly organized and only those with a map can easily navigate it straight to their headquarters, all others may find themselves facing dead ends when making a wrong turn.

The Uminari All-Girls Detective Agency has already earned its reputation in the sleuthing business as an investigative firm that can solve the most difficult of mysteries, having discovered the culprits in several cases of national interest over the past two years. The youth and beauty of its three founders, Hayate, Nanoha, and Fate have made them instant celebrities in Japan, but also in other parts of the world too, as stories about them and their cases have appeared in detective journals and true crime magazines across the globe.

And now you too, reader, having completed this introduction, know something of our three heroines and their famous Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency. At least enough for us to get started. It is time to discover what new case they are working on.

* * *

**A/N:** _Hello - This will be a little story of mystery based loosely on a series of books from the 60's that featured "The Three Investigators", three boys who had a bent for solving puzzles. What inspired me were all the nancy Drew and hardy Boy stories I remembered as a kid reading. While I would like to make this a funny read, I am not sure I have the knack for it. I do hope it is a fun read though._

I do not own or have rights to any aspect of the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series or franchise, nor to The Three Investigators by Robert Arthur.


	2. An Interesting Letter Arrives

**Uminari City All-Girl Detective Agency**

**Chapter Two: An Interesting Letter Arrives**

* * *

"SAVE ME!" Save me!" cries a strange, high-pitched voice in great terror. "Please save me!"

The three detectives—Nanoha Takamachi, Fate T. Harlaown, and Hayate Yagami—hear the cry but ignore it and continue working. Their speaker is their mascot, the trained mynah bird, Asura, whom they had acquired in a previous case. It picks up words and phrases with astounding ease and delights in trying them out.

"Hayate!" Shamal, Hayate's cousin, glances at Asura's cage which is hung from a length of board inside The Wolkenritter Salvage Yard. "You've been letting that bird watch too much television. It's talking like somebody in one of those mystery programs you like to watch so much."

"Yes, Shamal," Hayate said.

"PANTIES! White panties!" Asura's voice takes on an almost lustful sing song quality that sounds vaguely like the inflections of the shortest of the three dectectives in the Uminari All-Girls Detective Agency.

"HAYATE!" Shamal turns to look at her young cousin whose face beneath her bob of brown hair tied back with a barrette, begins to show evidence of a blush. "You've been taking that bird to your room at night while you pour over your doujinshi manga collection haven't you."

"Y-yes, Shamal," Hayate stutters in fear as she looks into the two daggers that are Shamal's eyes. Only the truth will save her...she hopes.

"Well what have I told you about this. Stop druelling over your manga and muttering strange things in the presence of this stupid bird. I can't have him shouting out 'big boobies' when clients come by."

"Ah, yeah," Hayate scatches her cheek as she thinks to herself it is more likely that the bird shouts that out when Shamal walks by, "sorry about that."

Hayate puffs as she picks up an old doorknob from the pile of junk at her feet. "Where shall I put this?"

"With the other doorknobs of course," Shamal tells her in an exasperated tone.

Fate, the tallest of the three detective girls with long blonde hair tied into her customary twin tails, walks up, her brow covered in sweat causing her blonde bangs to stick to her forehead, "Where do you want this?" She held an old front door precariously over her head.

"With the other doors please Fate-chan," Shamal gives the young blonde a smile, appreciating her earnest effort. Her eyes shift back to her young cousin, who just like a raccoon appears to be sneaking off...

"Hayate! Stop lounging about! We have a lot of work to do and time is going fast."

"Yikes!" Hayate has just been caught trying to sneak off so she can take a nap.

Time wasn't going fast enough to suit our favorite high school detective girls. Under Shamal's direction, they are engaged in an investigation they would have preferred to skip—they are investigating how much work three girls can do on a hot day. Shamal, at twenty three is the oldest of the Wolkenritters and really runs the Wolkinritter Salvage Yard. Hayate's other cousin, Signum did the buying for it and was away on buying trips most of the time. Today is a day when Shamal is having one of her frequent clean-up impulses. When that happens, Hayate and any of her friends who might be handy are pressed into service.

As the three girls work, moving batches of building material and generally tidying things up, they itched to get back into Headquarters—their hidden mobile home trailer—and to work on some new mystery. Their recent successes have given them confidence in their ability as investigators—perhaps too much confidence.

But no relief came their way, that is, until the postman turned into the main gate, driving his postal truck. He takes out a bundle of letters and tosses them into the antique iron mail basket which is screwed to the front of the salvage yard office and goes on his way.

"Mercy!" Shamal exclaimes. "I forgot all about the registered letter your cousin Signum wants posted, Hayate."

She fishes into a capacious pocket and brings out a slightly rumpled envelope. She smoothes out the wrinkles and hands the letter to Hayate.

"Ride down to the post office right away and register it, Hayate," she says. "Here's some money. Try to get it into the morning mail."

"I'll get it there, Shamal," the short girl promises. "Nanoha and Fate will take over for me while I'm gone. They've been complaining that what they need is a good workout."

While Nanoha and Fate splutter with indignation, Hayate hops into the Rolls Royce she won use of for a month in a local contest, and after quickly giving the chaufeer directions, shoots through the gate towards town. Shamal chuckles.

"All right, girls," she says, "I'll give you the rest of the morning off. You can have a meeting or build something or do whatever it is you do back there behind all that junk."

She gestures towards the various piles of salvage material which artfully conceal The Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency's Headquarters. Then she starts for the office.

"I'd better look over the mail right now," she says. "There might be something for Hayate in it. She's been sending away for samples of a lot of awfully strange things lately."

Glad to finish the heavy work, the two girls follow her. Shamal scoopes up the mail and begin to leaf through it.

"A card from an auction house," she say. "A bill. A cheque for that old steam boiler. Hmmm." She tucks a letter under her arm and goes on. "Another bill. A postcard from Signum'" she smiles softly and thinks to herself, _' I'll read that one later, Vita will be happy to hear from her big sister' _ before continuing on. "An advertisement to come and live in Florida." That makes her chuckle again. Then she looks at another letter, says "Hmmm" once more, and tucks that under her arm, too.

She goes on with the mail. There are a couple of letters for Signum, probably inquiries about special articles. The Wolkenritter Salvage Yard is widely known as the place to go when you need something that is odd, unusual, or hard to find. Among other things, Signum has an old pipe organ for sale. Sometimes, in the evening, she will go into the yard and play "Asleep in the Deep*" on it. Largo Kiel and Zest Grangeitz, the two big friends who do the heavy work and drive the Wolkenritter's two trucks, would gather round her and sing the words in a very melancholy manner.

When she had finished looking over the mail, Shamal shook her head.

"No," she says, "nothing for Hayate."

She turns to go into the office, then turns back. By the twinkle in her eyes the girls can see she was teasing them.

"However," she says, "there are two letters here addressed to The Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency. That's for you, isn't it?"

Now, with restrained excitement, Nanoha takes the letters she hands her. Shamal goes into the salvage yard office. The two girls make a bee-line for Headquarters.

"We won't even look to see who they're from until we get into Headquarters," Nanoha says, her face flush with excitement and the day's excertion working in the yard. "This may be official business."

"Right," Fate agrees as she looks into her best friend's excited eyes.

Fate catches her breath for a moment seeing the pure excitement in Nanoha's blue orbs, the joy displayed upon the small smile her lips have curled into, the blush on her cheeks and the faint sheen on her skin from working under the hot sun all morning. Ever since Nanoha changed her hairdo from her trademark twin pigtails to her one pony tail on the side, Fate cannot stop thinking how beautiful her friend is becoming. It made Fate think about what to do with her own blonde tresses that she keeps in her twin tails tied with ribbons Nanoha first gave her back when she moved to Uminari when she was nine. Her family was transferred to Japan after having spent her childhood in Italy. She didn't know anyone and stumbled shyly through her introduction at school - fortunately she did speak some Japanese. Nanoha had made it a point to befriend the girl with the red eyes and shy smile. That had been six years ago. Now they were fifteen and it is about time, Fate thinks, that she needs to create a more grown up look too. She wonders what Nanoha will think of her when she sees the more mature look she is hoping to acheive. Fate decides she will commit time at night when she is alone to research varoious hairdos and styles that might compliment her.

Ahh, but she has gotten off track a bit.

"Now You can start our correspondence file Nanoha. You set it all up already, but up to now we haven‟t had any mail."

"umm" Nanoha nods in agreement. Nanoha likes to organize things.

They thread their way between piles of junk until they came to the entrance of the maze that leads to their headquarters.

A high board fence surrounds the yard, and a roof six feet wide on the inner side only protects the better merchandise. There are large plastic covers to be used during the rainy seasons.

A large section of corrugated pipe—the kind used for drains—seems to block the passage they are on. However, when the girls move a piece of old iron grating that is hidden behind an old printing press, the mouth of the pipe is uncovered. The girls crawl into it. They replace the grating, then, on hands and knees, go forward about forty feet. The pipe, after disappearing partly underground and partly beneath some useless-looking iron beams, opens at the other end, directly under the concealed mobile home trailer which the girls have converted into Headquarters. When Sigmun found she couldn‟t sell the old trailer, she had told hayate and her friends that they could use it.

"Grrr..." Fate growls as she wipes her hands on her pants. "I don't know why that Hayate insists that we have to crawl through this maze to get to our headquarters when our clients can come in straight trhough a front door!"

"Hyahaha," Nanoha giggles at Fates disgruntled comment, although she has to agree too as she wipes a cobweb out of her hair. "Gross!"

A trap-door opens upwards. They scramble through this and are inside, in a tiny office fitted up with a desk that has been damaged in a fire, several chairs, a computer, a filing cabinet and a wall calendar hanging above the desk with pictures of Hayate's favorite anime characters on it - most from some magical girl show she likes to watch. On the desk there is an old-fashioned table radio. Fate had connected a microphone to its loudspeaker that enables the girls to listen to any phone conversation together. The remainder of the trailer has been converted into a miniature lab, a tiny workshop, and an itsy bitsy washroom.

Because it is dark inside—the trailer is surrounded by piles of junk outside with the exception of the 'front' door— Nanoha switches on the light that hangs over the desk. Then the two girls plop themselves down and stare at the letters.

"Hey!" Nanoha yelps with excitement. She reconizes the letterhead on the envelope as belonging to an important friend of her family, someone she admires greatly. He was the one to pique her interest in research and she has spent many hours with him learning how to catalog things, a skill that she finds very handy in her new occupation as a high school detective. "This one comes from the office of Uminari City's chief librarian! Let's open it first!"

Fate looks excited. Yuuno Scrya writing to them? It has to be about a case, because Mr. Scrya had promised them that if any mystery came to his attention, that seemed to need their talents, he would let them know. Although, it is irritating to Fate that what might be their newest case to solve came from Yuuno Scrya. She can't quite put her finger on why she doesn't really like Yuuno that much as he is always kind and helpful, but one thing is for sure, Fate doesn't like how much time Nanoha spends with him down at Uminari Central Library and she has a feeling that this case will have her spending even more time with him.

"Let's save that for last," she says. "It's probably the most interesting one. Anyway, don‟t you think we should wait for Hayate before we open these?"

"After the way Hayate tried to pull a fast one on us just now?" Nanoha says indignantly. "And tried to get Shamal to work us to a frazzle? Besides, I'm in charge of records and research and that certainly includes mail, doesn‟t it?"

The argument is good enough for Fate. She nods her consent and with that, Nanoha begins to slit open the less important letter. But as she does, she notes several things about the envelope and an idea occurrs to her.

"Before we read this letter," she says, "let‟s see if we can deduce anything from it. Hayate said we should practice deduction whenever we have a chance."

"What can you tell from a letter without even reading it?" Fate demands sckeptically. But Nanoha was already studying the envelope, both back and front. It was light lilac. She smells it; it has a lilac scent. Then she glances at the folded sheet of paper inside. It, too, looks and smells like lilac. At the top of the note-paper is an engraved picture of two playful kittens.

"Mmm," Nanoha says, and put her fingers to her forehead as if thinking deeply. "Yes, it's coming to me. The writer of this letter is a lady of—oh, about fifty, I guess. She is little and plump, and dyes her hair, and probably talks a lot. Also she's crazy about cats. She's good-hearted but a little careless sometimes. Usually she's cheerful but when she wrote this letter she was feeling very upset about something."

Fate's eyes popped.

"No way, Nanoha!" she says. "You can deduce all that from the envelope and the paper, without even reading the letter?"

"Sure." Nanoha is nonchalant about it. "I forgot to add that she also has a good deal of money and is probably active in charity work."

Fate took the envelope and the letter examining them, scowling. But presently a look of understanding crosses her face.

"Those kittens on her letterhead tell us she probably likes cats," she says. "The fact that she put the postage stamp on slantwise and tore it a little getting it out of the stamp-book, indicates that she's a little careless. Her letter starts with the lines slanting upwards across the page, which is often the sign of a cheerful person. At the end of the letter, though, the lines begin to slant downwards, showing she was getting very upset and unhappy about something."

"That's it." Nanoha says. "Deduction is simple when you put your mind to it."

"And when you have Hayate to give you some lessons," Fate adds. "But what I want to know is how you can tell her age and size and that she talks a lot and has money and is active in charity and dyes her hair. You'd have to be Sherlock Holmes to be able to tell all that."

"Well," Nanoha tells her, grinning, "the return address is in a part of Uminari City where the houses are very expensive. Women who live there are usually rich, and they are often active in charity I've heard my mother say."

"Okay," Fate challenges. "Now what about her age and size and the fact that she talks too much and dyes her hair?"

"Well," Nanoha answers, "she uses lilac-coloured paper with a lilac scent and green ink. It's mostly older women who go in for that sort of thing. But to be honest with you, I have an Aunt Midget Crowbel who uses exactly that kind of paper. She‟s fifty and small and talkative and dyes her hair, so I figure this"—she studies the paper to get the name on the signature—"this Mrs. Nakajima is probably the same kind of person."

Fate laughed.

"You did a good job even if you did throw that last part in as a guess," she says. "Now let's see what she says." She scanns the letter.

"Dear Uminari All-Girls Detectives,‟ Fate begins reading. "My very dear friend, Miss Waggoner, in Moriyoka, has told me how you found her missing parrot, Little Bo- Peep—‟

At this point Nanoha nimbly pulls the paper from between Fate's fingers. Obviously Mrs. Nakajima has heard about their previous exciting case T_he Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot_. That one ended up involving the Mayor of Uminari City.

"Mou - Fate-chan, I'm in charge of records," Nanoha reminds Fate. It is her job to keep all the records, do research, and make full notes on all the cases. She also trains their junior associates, (Vita) when in need of their assistance for a case.

"Letters," Nanoha adds, "are in my department. So I'll read this one."

Fate mutters, but gives in. She really cannot deny Nanoha anything.

Nanoha settles back and reads the handwritten letter swiftly. The facts are very simple. Mrs. Nakajima has an Abyssinian cat, named Sphinx, that she treasures greatly. Sphinx has been missing for a week. The police couldn‟t find the cat, and Mrs. Nakajima has put ads in the local papers without result. Now, will the three detectives of the Uminari All-Girls Detective Agency, who had done such a fine job finding the parrot for her friend, Miss Waggoner, be good enough to help her darling cat? She would be truly obliged. It is signed, "Yours most sincerely, Mrs. Quint Nakajima."

"A missing cat," Fate says thoughtfully. "Well, it's a case, anyhow. Sounds like a nice, quiet case, easy on the nerves." Fate might be the agencies most valued field operative, but she really is a homebody at heart and likes things to be peaceful. Plus, as a pet owner herself Fate appreciates how Mrs. Nakajima must be feeling having lost her cat. "I'll give her a ring and say we'll take it."

"Wait." Nanoha stops her as she reaches for her cellphone. "Let‟s see what Yuuno, I mean Mr Scrya, has to say Fate-chan."

"That's right," Fate agrees even though her face takes on a scowl. Nanoha did not notice as she is already slitting open the long envelope. She draws out a sheet of expensive-looking bond stationery, which has the name of Yunno Scrya, Chief Librarian of Uminari City engraved at the top, and starts to read it aloud.

However, after the first sentence she stops reading aloud and her eyes race on, devouring the facts contained in the letter. When she finishes, she looks at Fate with wide blue eyes.

"Wow!" She says. "Read it. You'll never believe it if I tell you. You'll say I'm making it up."

Curious, Fate takes the letter and starts to read. When she has finished, she looks across at Nanoha, goggle-eyed.

"Darn!" she whispers. And then she asks a question that anyone who has not read the letter will have thought a rather unusual one. "How can a 3,000-year-old mummy whisper?" she asks.

* * *

**A/N**: '_Asleep In The Deep_' _was written in 1897 by Henry W. Petrie. It is a ballad of the loss of many a sailor at sea. It was played by the orchestra during the great escape artist harry Houdini's "Chinese Water Torture Cell" trick._

I was asked if this will be a NanoFate story. As you might tell so far, there is a hint of that. This is a story about them as regular girls in high school. Nanoha and Fate are just starting to sense they have feelings for each other but are unsure and tentative about it. Hayate of course is well aware. Overall this is to be a sweet story that focuses more on their friendships and will keep its K+ rating.


	3. The Mummy Whispers to the Professor

**Chapter 3: The Mummy Whispers To The Professor**

* * *

_**The story behind the letter...**_

Behind the facts in the letter that Yuuno Scrya has written, lay certain events of a more peculiar and eerie quality than anything in which our lovely girls of the Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency had previously been involved.

Some ten or twelve miles from the Wolkenritter Salvage Yard, a small canyon pierces the hills outside Uminari City. It is a canyon on whose steep sides are nestled a few large and expensive houses, surrounded by trees and bushes. One of these is an old, European-style mansion, one wing of which is turned into a private museum by the owner, Professor Servilla Brevil, a noted Egyptologist.

A row of tall French windows reaching down to the floor face a tiled terrace. The windows are closed, making the room oddly hot and oppressive in the late afternoon sunshine. Near the windows stand several statues that taken from old tombs in Egypt, One statue, made of wood, was a representation of the ancient Egyptian god, Anubis. It has a human body with the head of a jackal. The shadow of the jackal head falls across the floor, forming a dark, inky blot of a rather unnerving shape.

Other relics taken from the tombs of ancient Egypt crowd the room. Metal masks that seem to smile with secret knowledge hang on the walls. Clay tablets, gold jewellery, and ancient scarabs—images of sacred beetles, carved from green jade by workmen long-dead—brood in glass cases.

In an open space near the windows stands a wooden mummy case with a lid, on which is carved the features of the mummy inside. It is a very plain mummy case with no gold leaf or painted colours to make it look rich and luxurious. It is, however, a mummy case that holds a mystery. It is the pride of Professor Servilla Brevil, a middle age woman, petite, maybe a bit softer in her angles then when she was younger but still somewhat dignified-looking with her large round spectacles and tufts of gray hair streaking through her brunette color. Her hair piled on top of her head in a hurried bun.

When she was younger, Professor Brevil headed many expeditions to Egypt. On these expeditions she discovered lost tombs carved into rocky hillsides, holding the mummies of long-dead pharaohs and their wives and servants, together with jewels and other objects. She kept some of the relics in her museum, where she is writing a book about her discoveries.

The mummy case and the mummy inside it arrived just a week earlier. Professor Brevil had discovered this mummy fully fifteen years before. But since she was busy at that time, working on a long and difficult assignment, she loaned the mummy to a museum in Cairo, Egypt. When she retired from expedition work, she had asked the Egyptian government to send the mummy to her for further study with a promise to return it upon completion of her research. Now that she has time, she wanted to see if she could unravel the mystery that surrounds it.

On this particular afternoon, two days before the girls had received Yuuno Scrya's letter, Professor Brevil was standing in the museum room, nervously tapping a pencil against the lid of the mummy case—a lid that could be lifted off like the lid of a chest. Indeed, the mummy case was really nothing but a special wooden chest in which the mummy rested.

With the professor was Barkridge, her butler, a tall, thin Englishman who had worked for her for years.

"Are you sure you want to do this, ma'am, after the shock you had yesterday?" Barkridge asked.

"I must see if it happens again, Barkridge," Professor Brevil said firmly. "First, please open the windows. I hate a closed room."

"Yes, ma'am." Barkridge swung open the nearest French windows. Many years before, Professor Brevil had been caught in a closed tomb for two days, and since then she had a strong aversion to being in a closed room of any kind.

When the windows were opened, Barkridge lifted off the lid of the mummy case and leaned it against the case. The man and woman bent to peer in.

Some people might not enjoy looking at a mummy, although there is nothing offensive about one. Soaked in bitumen and other substances to preserve them, then carefully wrapped in linen, the bodies of dead kings and nobles of ancient Egypt were preserved almost intact through the centuries. It was part of the religious belief of the time that they must be so preserved for their proper entrance into the next world. For this same reason many clothes, ornaments, tools, and jewels that they owned in life were buried with them—to be used in the world to come.

The mummy inside bore the name Ra-Orkon. The linen cocoon in which it was wrapped had been partly opened so that the professor could see Ra-Orkon's face. It was an elderly, sensitive face, that looked as if it were carved from some dark wood. The lips were slightly parted, as if it were about to speak. The eyes shut.

"Ra-Orkon looks very peaceful, ma'am," Barkridge commented. "I do not think he will speak to you to-day."

"I hope not." Professor Brevil set her lips. "It is not natural, Barkridge, for a mummy dead for three thousand years to talk. Even to whisper. It is not natural at all."

"Very unnatural, ma'am," the butler agreed.

"Yet he did whisper to me yesterday," the professor said. "When I was alone in the room with him. He whispered in some unknown tongue, but he sounded very urgent, as if he wished me to do something."

She leaned over and spoke to the mummy.

"Ra-Orkon, if you wish to speak to me, I am listening, I will try to understand." A minute passed. Two. The only sound was a buzzing fly.

"Perhaps it was only my imagination after all," the professor said. "Yes, I'm sure it must have been. Bring me the small saw from the workshop, Barkridge. I'm going to cut a corner off the mummy case. My friend Hirata at Tokyo University will try to place the date when Ra-Orkon was buried by using the radio-active-carbon dating test on the wood."

"Very good, ma'am." The butler went out.

Professor Brevil moved round the mummy case, tapping it, deciding just where to cut off the piece of wood she needed. In one place she thought she detected a slightly hollow sound, in another an apparent looseness, as if dry rot had set in.

As she worked, she became aware of a low murmuring issuing from the mummy case. She stood upright, looked startled, then placed her ear near the mummy‟s mouth.

The mummy was whispering to her! Words were issuing from the slightly parted lips—words spoken by an Egyptian who had been dead for three thousand years.

She could not understand the words. They were harsh and hissing syllables, in such a low voice she could barely hear them. But they rose and fell and seemed to be getting more and more urgent, as if the mummy were anxious to make her understand something.

Tremendous excitement gripped the professor. The language was probably ancient Arabic—here and there she felt he could almost understand a word.

"Go on, Ra-Orkon!" she urged. "I'm trying to understand."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am?"

At the words from behind her, the professor whirled. Ra-Orkon fell silent. Barkridge was standing there, holding a small, sharp saw.

"Barkridge!" Brevil cried. "The mummy was whispering again! He started as soon as you left the room and ceased when you entered!"

Barkridge looked grave. He frowned.

"It's as if he won‟t speak unless you are alone, ma'am," he suggested. "Could you understand what he was saying?"

"No," the woman groaned. "Almost, but not quite. I‟m not a language expert. He may be speaking in ancient Arabic, or in some form of Hittite or Chaldean speech."

Barkridge glanced out the window. His gaze fell on a house on the opposite slope of the canyon—a new, white stucco house perched on the hillside.

"Your friend, Professor Tachibana, ma'am," he said. He pointed to the house. "He's our greatest authority on the languages of the Middle East. He could be here in five minutes, and if Ra-Orkon will speak for him, he might be able to tell you what Ra- Orkon is saying."

"Of course!" Professor Brevil exclaimed. "I should have called him immediately. After all, his father was with me when I found Ra-Orkon. Poor chap—he was murdered a week later in the bazaars. Go and telephone Freeman, Barkridge. Ask him to come at once."

"Yes, ma'am." The butler had hardly left the room before the uncanny whispering began again.

Professor Servilla Brevil made another futile attempt to understand what the mummy was saying, then gave up in despair. She looked through the open French window, across the canyon that separated her from the home of her younger friend, Professor Tachibana. She could see Tachibana's house, which was built on a steep slope far below the level of the road.

Brevil watched her young friend leave his house by a side door, climb up a flight of stairs to his garage, and drive out a moment later on to the narrow road around the rim of the canyon. While Brevil's eyes were anxiously watching her friend, her ears were straining to hear the whisper.

When the mummy fell silent, great anxiety gripped the little woman. Was the mummy going to stop just when there was a chance that someone might help interpret what it was saying?

"Keep talking, Ra-Orkon!" Professor Brevil urged. "Please don't stop. I'm listening, I'm trying to understand."

After a moment the whispering resumed. Then the professor heard a car stop outside. Presently a door opened and someone entered the room.

"Is that you, Tachibana?" she asked.

"Yes, Brevil, what is it?" A low, pleasant voice answered.

"Come here quietly. I want you to hear something." Then she felt the other man at her side.

"Ra-Orkon!" Brevil cried. "Keep on! Don't stop now!"

But the mummy remained as silent as it must have been for thirty centuries before it had entered that room.

"I don't understand," Professor Tachibana said as the older woman turned. Tachibana was a slender man of middle height, with a good-humoured face, and hair just beginning to grey. "You seemed to be listening to the mummy talk just now."

"I was!" Brevil cried. "He was whispering to me in some unknown language and I hoped you could interpret it for me. But he stopped as soon as he saw you. Or—"

She herself stopped, aware of the strange look her scientific friend was giving her.

"You don't believe it, do you?" she asked. "You don't believe that Ra-Orkon was whispering to me?"

Professor Tachibana rubbed his chin.

"It is hard to believe," he said at last. "Of course, if I could hear him myself—" "Let's try," Tachibana said. "Ra-Orkon, speak again. We will try to understand." Both waited. The mummy remained silent.

"It's no use," Professor Brevil sighed. "He was whispering, I assure you of it. But he won‟t speak unless I am alone with him. And I did hope you could hear him and interpret his speech."

Professor Tachibana tried to look as if he believed his friend, but it was obvious that he found the story difficult to credit.

"I'd certainly like to help you if I could," he said. Then he caught sight of the small saw in the other‟s hand. "What is the saw for?" he asked, "Surely you weren't going to saw Ra-Orkon open!"

"No, no," Professor Brevil said. "Merely wanted to saw off a corner of the case for a carbon dating test to determine when Ra-Orkon was buried."

"Damage such a valuable relic!" the young man exclaimed. "I hope that won't be necessary."

"I‟m not sure Ra-Orkon and his case are valuable," Professor Brevil said. "Merely mysterious. In any case the carbon dating is necessary. But I'll put it off until I can solve the mystery of this curious whispering. Frankly, Tachibana, at this point I am puzzled. A mummy can't whisper! But this one does. And only to me."

"Mmmm." Professor Tachibana frowned, trying to hide a look of pity for the older woman. "Well now, would you like me to keep old Ra-Orkon at my place for a few days? Alone with me, he might talk some more. Then I might be able to understand him and tell you what he says."

Brevil shot a keen glance towards the younger man.

"Thank you, Tachibana," she said with dignity. "I can see you are just humouring me. You believe I have been imagining all this. Well, perhaps I have. I will keep Ra-Orkon here until I am sure whether or not it is merely my imagination."

Professor Tachibana merely nodded.

"If you can get old Ra-Orkon to talk again," he said kindly, "call me at once. I'll drop whatever I‟m doing and come over. Now I have to hurry. I have a conference at the university."

He bade Brevil good-bye and left. Alone, the professor waited. Ra-Orkon remained silent. Presently Barkridge entered.

"Shall I serve your dinner, ma'am?"

"Yes, Barkridge." Professor Brevil replied. "And remember, you must say nothing to anyone of what has happened."

"I understand, Ma'am."

"Tachibana's reaction tells me what my scientific colleagues would say if they heard I claimed a mummy was whispering to me. They would say I was getting old and senile. And imagine if the story got into the newspapers! My whole reputation as a scientist would be ruined."

"Indeed it would, ma'am," Barkridge agreed.

"Yet I must talk this over with someone." Brevil compressed her lips. "Someone who is not a scientist yet who knows that there are many mysteries in the world. I have it. To-night I'll call on my dear friend Yuuno Scrya and tell him. At least he won't scoff at me!"

Yuuno Scrya did not scoff. Instead, as we have seen, he wrote a letter to The Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency.

* * *

**A/N: **My original idea was to use all canon characters but then I decided to use OC to populate this world. Only Nanoha, Fate and Hayate and their families will be canon. I think this will help focus on the girls and it will be fun to explore other characters of my own without trying to force them to fit an expectation. So… now on with the exploits of our daring three as they investigate the mystery of a 2000 year old mummy that speaks!


	4. The Curse of the Mummy

**Chapter 4 - The Curse of the Mummy**

* * *

**_Approximately fifty-seven minutes from the end of the last chapter..._**

"HOW DID YOU KNOW about the letter from Scrya-san, telling us about Professor Brevil and her whispering mummy?" Fate demanded twenty minutes later for the fifth time.

* * *

_**Fifteen minutes earlier...**_

_Upon returning from the post office, Hayate popped into the Wolkenritter Salvage Yard's office to let Shamal know that she had gotten Sigmun's registered letter off in time. After a few minutes she came straight out and headed over to the Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency's headquarters. She contemplated using the maze and tunnel to enter through the trap door in the floor but decided it would be more fun to just walk in nice and easy through the client's entrance. Hayate knew this would rile Fate up as she hated crawling through the tunnel. So did Nanoha, but that girl plays it cool, sometimes too cool. Hayate rubbed her hand across the back of her neck as a chill passed through her._

* * *

**_Now fifty-eight minutes from the end of the last chapter and one minute form the beginning of this chapter..._**

Hayate Yagami sighs. "If you don't believe I'm a mind reader Fate-chan, you will have to figure it out for yourself," she says. "Ha! Use your power of deduction."

This answer reduces Fate to frustrated silence. Hayate has an all knowing smirk upon her face as she places her hands upon her hips and takes a general's pose.

Nanoha grins to herself. Hayate got the better of them again. In her own good time she will tell them how. For the moment, Nanoha is happy to be in on the start of what might be—and indeed, is going to turn out to be—a mystery, eerie and baffling enough to intrigue any investigator.

"Come on Fate-chan, don't go all puppy dog sulky on us now." Hayate turns to Fate speaking in the kind of voice one uses for a little child.

"Hmmps," Fate exhales her breath in an aggravated huff. She stamps her foot then turns away from Hayate only to face Nanoha who is watching her with an amused smile on her pretty face. _('Wait', _thinks Fate. _'Did I just think my best friend has a pretty face?')_ She feels her cheeks becoming warm.

"There, there Fate-chan, you'll figure it out sooner or later so don't get all grumpy, 'Kay?" asks Nanoha in her sweetest most syrupy voice, (Fate perceives this as Nanoha's voice for speaking with children too - which is precisely what it is).

'_Oh no,' _Fate thinks, _'Nanoha thinks I'm acting like a little brat! That Hayate, she does this to me all the time. One of these days I'm gonna kill her!' _

Covering her mouth with her hand, Nanoha cannot help laughing at herself as she watches Fate turn beat red and mutter to herself with her face going through all kinds of contortions in her confusion and embarrassment. '_She is just to cute to not tease sometimes,' _she thinks. Still she feels that maybe its time to rescue Fate's dignity from Hayate.

"Alright everyone, what do you say we get started on our new mystery?"

* * *

_**Twenty minutes later…..**_

The three girls sit occupying the rear seat of the big, ancient Rolls-Royce sedan, which is their present means of transport over the distances that prevail around and surrounding Uminari City. They are now rolling smoothly through the hills that separate the Wolkenritter Salvage Yard from the northern section of Uminari City where the steep canyon that Professor Brevil's European style manor is located.

"Hayate," Nanoha says, stretching luxuriously, "I don't know what we'll do when your thirty days use of this car is up. We've used it for fourteen days already."

"Fifteen, I regret to say, Takamachi-sama," Hisakawa-san, the unusually tall, erect Japanese chauffeur in the front seat reminds her. A warm friendship has sprung up between him and the girls. "Counting today, that is. I will miss our little adventures when I no longer have the pleasure of driving you."

"That just leaves fifteen days," sighs Fate. She has a thing for cars and unlike other young women her age, Fate doesn't decorate her room with posters of boy groups or the latest teen movie star. She is a girl who loves the classics, just like this vintage Rolls Royce she is riding in now. In her room, over her desk hangs a poster of her baby - a 1957 Ferrari 625 TRC Spider. (She keeps a photo of Nanoha in her room too, it is of the two of them smiling in a photo booth. Hayate is in it too, but Fate had shoved her to the back just before the shutter snapped taking the photo and all that can be seen of her is a bit of her brown hair, and her right fist raised in a peace sign - or bunny fingers. It depends how you look at it.)

Hayate notices the far away look in her blonde friend's red eyes. They always take on a smoky look when she gets lost in thoughts of classic cars and Nanoha.

"Two and two don‟t always make four," Hayate says, her manner mysterious. "And fifteen and fifteen don't always make thirty. Stop here, please, Hisakawa-san."

The car stops a few feet below the crest of one of the many ridges in the hills around Uminari City. A driveway turns off from the road, and large stone pillars stand on each side of it. A metal plate bearing the name Brevil is bolted to one pillar.

The driveway runs down the canyon slope into an extensive estate covered with many trees. Just visible through the trees and shrubs is the red-tile roof of a mansion built in the old Spanish style. Beyond the mansion the ground dips much more steeply to the bottom of the canyon; then it climbs up to the next ridge. On the opposite slope there are a number of houses built on various levels.

"That must be Professor Brevil's home," Hayate says to the others. "I telephoned, and she's expecting us, so drive on down, Hisakawa-san, and we'll introduce ourselves. I'm very anxious to meet that mummy. Maybe he'll speak to us!"

"He'd better not!" Fate muttered. "I don't stay in the same room with any mummy that talks. Personally, I don't blame the professor for being upset." Fate, feeling the goosebumps rising on her skin, crosses her arms and looks out the car window as they enter the estate trying to give off a cool appearance.

Of course everyone knows Fate-chan hates anything supernatural, especially ghosts. Nanoha gives her friend an affectionate look. '_Fate-chan is just too cute sometimes,' _Nanoha thinks to herself._ 'But who does she think she is fooling? Everyone in our class knows she is a scardy cat when it comes to ghosts after she fainted on the Haunted House ride during the school trip to Disneyland Tokyo last year.'_

Suppressing her giggle Nanoha pats Fate on her arm resting her hand there, "There, there Fate-chan. I am sure the mummy can't actually talk, but if it can, just think how interesting. I mean, it had three thousand years to think about what it wants to say."

"Hmmmph," is the only reply Fate can give. She would have shaken the hand resting on her arm off, but it was Nanoha's! For some reason Fate feels comforted and safe.

Hayate smiles to herself and for once doesn't say anything as she also turns to look out the car window watching the professor's mansion growing larger in her view as the car continues down the drive.

* * *

_**At the exact same time as the girls drive up to the professor's manor, the professor is…..**_

Professor Brevil is at the moment very upset. She is sitting in an easy chair on the terrace, sipping the hot consommé Barkridge has just served her.

"Tell me, Barkridge," she asks anxiously, "did you listen again last night as I asked you to?"

"Yes, ma'am," the butler answered. "I stayed in the room with Ra-Orkon until it was quite dark. Once I thought I heard something—"

"Yes, yes? Go on!"

"But I was forced to conclude it was just imagination, sir." The butler took away the empty cup and hands his employer a napkin. Professor Brevil wipes her lips. She pushes up her oversized glasses that have slipped along her nose.

"Something's happening to me, Barkridge," she says. "I find myself waking up at night, my heart pounding. This mystery—it is unnerving me."

"I find it very upsetting myself, ma'am," Barkridge responds. "Do you suppose—"

"Do I suppose what? Speak up, Barkridge!"

"I was only going to say, ma'am, that I wonder if you have thought of returning Ra- Orkon to the Egyptian government. Then, ma'am, you will be free of this distressing— —"

"No!" Professor Brevil's lips set in a stubborn line. "There is a great deal here that I don't understand. I refuse to give up before I know what it all means. I think I'll be getting some help soon."

"A detective, sir?" Barkridge exclaims. "But I thought you did not want any word of this occurrence to reach the police."

"Not the police. Some investigators my friend Yuuno Scrya recommended." A sound of melodious chimes echoes inside the house behind them. "That may be them now. Please hurry, Barkridge, and bring them out here at once."

"Yes, ma'am." The butler goes into the house and returns leading three girls on to the terrace—one a brunette, with a barrette, short and petite, and one an auburn haired beauty with blue eyes that resemble the color of the sky after the rain, and one tall and slender, her body toned yet feminine. Those red eyes! The professor frowns.

Hayate Yagami sees the frown and knows all to well what it means. Professor Brevil had expected them to be older. Hayate draws herself up straight, (which does little to improve her height disadvantage) and set her chin so that she immediately looks older. From her pocket she whips out a business card. The professor takes it automatically.

It reads:

* * *

THE UMINARI ALL-GIRL DETECTIVE AGENCY

"We Investigate Anything"

**? ? ?**

First Investigator - HAYATE YAGAMI

Second Investigator - FATE T HARLAOWN

Records, Research and Training - NANOHA TAKAMACHI

* * *

The professor asks the question that almost everyone asks.

"What are the three question marks for?" She inquires. "They would seem to indicate a doubt of your ability."

Hayate and Fate grin at each other. The question marks were Nanoha's idea. A question mark is their secret symbol. When one of them wants to let the others know that she has been to a certain place, she chalks up a question mark. Hayate uses white chalk, Nanoha green, and Fate blue so each of them always knows who has left the mark.

"The question mark," Hayate says now in her most adult manner, "otherwise known as the interrogation mark, is a universal symbol for a question unanswered, a riddle unsolved, a mystery unexplained. Therefore we have made it our trade-mark. We will undertake to solve any mystery you want us to tackle. We cannot promise success, but we can promise to try."

"Hmmm." The woman in the chair turns the card in her fingers thoughtfully. "If you hadn't made that last statement, I would have had Barkridge show you out. No one can promise success in any endeavour, as I well know. But success often follows a good try."

She pauses studying them. Finally she nods.

"Yuuno Scrya sent you to me," she says. "I have faith in his judgment. I can't call in the police for obvious reasons. I can't ask a private detective to help me—he'd think I had bats in my belfry, I believe the phrase is. A professional colleague would just secretly pity me and spread the report that I was old and senile. But three imaginative girls, with no preconceived notions—Yes, I have a feeling that if anyone can help me get to the bottom of this thing, you can."

She rises from her chair and walks towards the left-wing of the house.

"Come along," she says. "I will introduce you to Ra-Orkon and we can get started."

Hayate follows her. Fate and Nanoha are about to, but Barkridge holds out his hand to stop them. The butler‟s hand is shaking. His face shows strain and anxiety.

"Girls," he says, "before you become involved with the mummy, Ra-Orkon, there's something you should know."

"What's that?" Fate asks, frowning.

"There's a curse on it," Barkridge says, lowering his voice. "There was a curse put on its tomb and anyone who entered it or disturbed Ra-Orkon. Over the years the curse has taken the lives of almost all the members of the original expedition. Violently. Unexpectedly.

"The professor won't admit it. She won't admit anything that isn't scientific. And it has never affected her—until now. But now she actually has the mummy in the house here and I—I'm afraid. For her. And for myself. And for you girls too, if you get mixed up in this."

Wide-eyed, they stare at him. Barkridge's face works with emotion. He is obviously sincere. At that moment, Hayate turns back as she is about to enter the museum room behind the professor.

"Come on," she calls. "What are you waiting for?"

They hurry after her and step into the big museum room through the open French window. The professor is striding directly to the wooden mummy case. She lifts off the lid and points.

"There is Ra-Orkon," she says. "And I hope—I do hope you can help me learn what it is he is trying to tell me."

The mahogany-coloured mummy of Ra-Orkon seems to be resting peacefully inside its case. Its eyes are closed as always, yet they look almost as if they might open.

Hayate examins the mummy with a keen professional interest. In her mind she digresses for a moment as she wonders how Vita might look if she wraps her up in a similar style. Shaking her head of these thoughts she refocuses on the mummy in front of her, keen to note all she can of Ra-Orkon.

Nanoha and Fate, however, feel themselves breathing a bit hard. It isn't that the mummy is unpleasant to look at, (well for Fate-chan it was and if it were not for Nanoha standing right next to her, she would have bolted from the room). It was the idea. A whispering mummy is eerie enough to think about. But a whispering mummy that has a curse on it—

Nanoha's eyes met Fate's. Fate looks miserable.

"Dagnabit!" Fate says under her breath. "Hayate's really got us into something this time!"

* * *

**A/N: **I want to thank everyone who has reviewed my story so far. I got a suggestion to check out Tintin as a possible resource for my story. I am borrowing much from Alfred Hitchcock's mystery books.I am trying to make this have the flavor of a story written in the 50's or 60's - except with a little bit of yuri in it. Just the sweet innocence of learning about love. It will be a bit of a tease I think through out as I really want it to be more about the mystery and of their friendship/partnership in the detective agency. Hope you enjoyed and feel free to review - I am always open to your thoughts on the story. ~ SS


	5. Sudden Danger

**Chapter 5 - Sudden Danger**

* * *

Hayate is studying the mummy of Ra-Orkon intently. Professor Brevil pats her forehead with a handkerchief.

"Barkridge," she says to the butler, "open the windows. You know I can't stand being in a closed room."

"Yes, ma'am." The tall butler pushes the French windows open, and a breeze sweeps into the room, making the masks on the wall rustle and tinkle.

Fate jumps in surprise; Nanoha steps closer to her, grabbing her sleeve. Fate isn't sure if Nanoha is comforting her, or using her as a security blanket, either way she stands taller and moves between the shorter girl and the mummy.

"That isn't what you heard, is it Professor?" she asks. "A sound made by the breeze perhaps?"

"No, no, dear girl," the woman says. "I know the difference between casual sounds and human speech! The mummy was definitely whispering."

"Then we will rule out the possibility that you are mistaken," Hayate responds. "We will proceed on the assumption that you actually heard speech, possibly in ancient Arabic, possibly not."

"Is there anything else I can do, ma'am?" Barkridge asks. "Or shall I resume my duties?"

All of them look at him. They see his eyes widen in sudden alarm. Then he hurls himself upon Professor Brevil.

"Look out, ma'am," he yells. "Look out!"

The two fall to the floor. An instant later the tall, wooden statue of Anubis, the jackal-headed god that stands by the window, crashes forward almost upon the spot where the professor was standing. It rolls over on its side and the jackal face seems to snarl at him.

Shakily, Professor Brevil removes Barkridge's hand from her derrière. Barkridge's face turns a bright red. Hayate smirks to herself over that.

"Ahem," clearing his throat Barkridge rises and offers to help up his master.

"Ah...thank you Barkridge." They look down at the fallen statue.

"I saw it tottering, ma'am," Barkridge's voice trembles. "I knew it was going to fall. It might have struck you and injured you badly." He swallowed hard. "It's the curse of Ra-Orkon, ma'am," he said. "It has followed the mummy here."

"Nonsense!" the Professor says, dusting herself off and pushing her glasses back up her nose with her index finger. "The curse is just a newspaper story. The inscription on the tomb didn't mean at all what Lord Carter thought it did. It's just chance that the statue of Anubis should fall the way it did."

"The statue has stood without falling for three thousand years," Barkridge says in a husky whisper. "Why should it fall now? You might have been seriously injured, or even killed as Lord Carter was when—"

"Lord Carter was killed in an automobile accident!" the professor snaps. "You may go, Barkridge."

"Yes, ma'am." The butler turns, but Hayate halts him. Hayate is bending over the statue, and now she looks up.

"Barkridge, you said you saw the statue start to topple," she states. "Please tell us just exactly how it moved."

"It began to lean forward, Yagami-sama," Barkridge says. "When I saw it, it was already leaning at a dangerous angle. As if—as if planning to injure the professor."

"Barkridge!" his employer says sharply.

"It's true, ma'am. Anubis just leaned forward and—and fell. I acted as swiftly as I could. I—I'm glad I was in time."

"Yes, I'm very grateful," the professor snaps. "But let's have no more talk about curses."

As she says the word "curses", they all jump. A golden mask falls from the wall and thuds to the floor behind them.

"You—you see, ma'am?" Barkridge asks, his pallor increasing.

"The breeze," the professor says, but with less assurance. "It blew Anubis over and blew down the mask."

Fate and Nanoha have joined Hayate, crouching over the wooden statue; Nanoha runs her hand along the square base on which it had stood.

"It's pretty heavy, ma'am," she says. "And the base isn't warped or anything. It would take quite a breeze to blow over this statue."

"Young women," Professor Brevil addresses them all, "I am a scientist. I do not believe in curses or evil spirits. If the Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency is going to assist me, I must ask you all to remember that."

Hayate straightens, her face thoughtful.

"I don't believe in them either, ma'am," she says. "But the fact remains that two curious incidents have occurred, without any apparent cause, inside of five minutes."

"Mere chance," the professor tells her. "Now, young woman, you said you believed the mummy whispered to me as I have stated. Perhaps you have a theory about how a long-dead mummy can whisper?"

Hayate pinches her lower lip. Nanoha and Fate know the gesture means she is throwing her mental gears into high. (That - or she is picturing Signum dressed like an Egyptian. - _In another city, in the middle of a business meeting, a tall pink haired woman feels the skin on the back of her neck crawl._)

"I have a theory, ma'am."

"A scientific theory?" Professor Brevil demands, placing her arms on her hips. "Not hocus-pocus?"

"Yes, ma'am. A very scientific theory." Hayate turns to Fate and Nanoha.

"Fate-chan, you and Nanoha might go and ask Hisakawa-san to give you the leather bag that's in the trunk of the car. It has some equipment in it that I want to try out."

"Sure, Hayate!" Fate exclaims, glad to have a chance to get out. "Come on, Nanoha."

"I will show you through the house," Barkridge offers.

They leave Hayate and the professor alone in the museum room and follow Barkridge down a long hall which leads to the front door. The Rolls-Royce is parked outside.

Hisakawa, as usual when not otherwise occupied, is carefully polishing the shining exterior of the car.

"Girls," the butler whispers as he lets them out. "The professor is very stubborn. She won't admit there is a curse. But you saw what happened. Next time she may be killed. Or one of us, maybe. Please persuade her to send Ra-Orkon back to Egypt!"

Then he vanishes, leaving them in a thoughtful frame of mind.

"Maybe Hayate doesn't believe in curses," Fate says. "And I'm not saying I do. But something tells me that if we knew what was good for us, we'd get out of here!"

Nanoha has no ready answer. She doesn't believe in ancient curses, either. On the other hand, suppose there was something in it?

Hisakawa looks up as they approach.

"All finished, ladies?" he asks.

"Just getting started," the blonde tells him, her tone gloomy. "This time we're tangling with an ancient Egyptian curse, and there's no telling what will happen. Right now we need the leather case Hayate put in the trunk."

"I'll back Mistress Yagami and you girls against an Egyptian curse any time," Hisakawa says, leading the way to the rear of the car. He opens the trunk and takes out a flat leather case.

"This must be what Mistress Yagami wants," he says. "She asked me to put it in without telling anyone."

Nanoha takes the case, surprised at its heaviness, and they start back to the museum room.

"Wonder what's in it?" she speculates, hefting the case. "It's pretty heavy. Hayate has been planning to surprise us, I bet."

Fate unconsciously reaches for the bag and takes it from Nanoha, releaving her from the weight.

"She's a tricky one alright," Fate says.

They enter the museum room. Hayate and Professor Brevil have lifted the statue of the jackal-headed Anubis back into place. Hayate is pushing it with her hand. Then she shakes her head.

"It would take a gale to blow this statue over, professor," she says, as Nanoha and Fate enter. "Definitely no breeze could do it."

The professor drew her brows together.

"Are you saying a supernatural force is at work?"

"I don't know what caused the statue to fall, Professor," Hayate says politely. "But I'll show you how to make the mummy whisper."

She takes the case Fate hands her and unlocks it. Throwing back the lid, she reveals what looks like to the professor three oversized (and old-fashioned) transistor radios.

Hayate does not like to give explanations when she can demonstrate instead. Now she hands one of the radios to Fate. From the case she takes a leather belt with copper wire sown to it, and fastens this round Fate's waist. She plugs in a lead-in wire from the belt to the little radio and hands it to Fate as well.

"Open the window and walk out on the terrace, then through the gardens, Fate-chan" she says. "Hold the radio to your ear and pretend to be listening to it. But press this button on the side and talk instead. To listen, let up on the button."

"But what is it?" Fate demands.

"It‟s a walkie-talkie," Hayate says. "The copper belt is your antenna. It has a sending and receiving range of half a mile, using the Citizen's Band for transmission. I decided we needed some way to keep in touch with each other if we ever got separated on a case, so I started making these last week."

"Ah, Hayate... why not just use our cellphones?" Nanoha asks a bit amused.

Hayate sticks out her lower lip for a moment pouting. "Where is the fun in that? This is so much more Dick Tracy."

Fate has a sudden picture in her mind of Hayate dressing them all up in the costumes of famous detectives of yore. "I'm not going to wear any detective costumes, Hayate," she says with a stern look.

Hayate's lower lip sticks out further.

* * *

**Four minutes later after Hayate finishes her sulking...**

"I walk down through the garden and talk," Fate repeats. "What do I say?"

"Anything you want," Hayate tells her. "You can serenade Nanoha if you like." (It never takes Hayate long to bounce back.)

"H-Huh?" Nanoha and Fate say together. Fate suddenly finds a spot on the carpeted floor to be very interesting. Nanoha simply punches Hayate in the arm...hard.

"Okay, okay!" Hayate rubs her arm. "Gee-wiz, Nanoha. You didn't have to punch me that hard."

"Yes I did."

"- - -"

Hayate turns to the tall blonde who has recovered, (mostly) from her embarrassment.

"Fate-chan, open the window and go straight down."

"Well, okay," Fate agrees. Suddenly her red eyes become big around as she shoots a glance at Hayate. "So this is how you did your mind reading!" she blurts out.

"We'll talk about that later," Hayate grins. "Right now I want to demonstrate for the professor. Start talking when you get—let's see . . ." She opens the tall French window and looks out. "Oh, down by that wall with the big stone ball on top of the gatepost."

"Okay." Fate starts out across the tiled terrace, holding the radio to her ear.

"Now Professor, if you don't mind my touching the mummy—" Hayate begins.

"Not at all, my dear," the professor says. "Just be gentle with him."

Hayate bends over the mummy case. In a moment she straightens. In her hand she holds one of the three walkie-talkies. The third has vanished.

"All right," she says into the little radio. "Start talking, Fate-chan. Professor, you and Nanoha listen."

They all listen. The silence is broken by an indistinct murmur.

"Bend over the mummy case," Hayate suggests. She herself is still holding the second little walkie-talkie to her ear.

Frowning, the professor bends over the mummy case. Nanoha also leans over, her side ponytail falling forward. And they hear the mummy whispering!

They quickly realise, however, that the mummy is whispering in Fate's voice.

"I'm past the wall now," Fate is saying. "I'm walking straight down the slope towards a big clump of bushes."

"Keep going, Fate-chan," Hayate says into her radio. To the others in the room with her she says, "You see, it's quite simple to make a mummy whisper."

She turns back a loose fold of the linen wrapping which the professor has removed from Ra-Orkon's face. Under the wrapping is the third walkie-talkie. From it is coming Fate's voice. The effect, however, is a very convincing one and they can easily believe the mummy is whispering if they had not known the truth.

"A scientific solution, ma'am," Hayate tells the professor. "A small radio receiver hidden with the mummy, and someone broadcasting into it from outside the house would easily give you the effect—"

At that moment, Fate's voice, coming to them from the tiny radio, took on a note of alarm.

"Oh oh!" she says. "There's somebody hiding in the bushes ahead of me. It's a boy. He doesn't know I saw him. I'm going to grab him."

"Wait a minute!" Hayate said urgently. "We'll help you."

"If you do he'll run away," Fate's voice came back to them. "I'm going to pretend to be wandering round, then I'll jump him. As soon as you hear me yell, come running."

"All right, Fate-chan," Hayate says. "You grab him and we'll come and help."

"Hayate!" Nanoha's voice fills with worry. "We have to go help Fate-chan now!"

"I know you are worried Nanoha, but trust in Fate-chan. She's good out in the field and she wouldn't try to do this if she didn't think she could handle it."

Nanoha doesn't feel comfortable with sending Fate-chan into what might be a dangerous situation, but she knows that her best friend would feel hurt if she didn't trust her to know what she is doing.

"Alright Hayate... but she better not get hurt!"

Hayate turns to the professor. "An intruder lurking outside," she says. "This may solve the mystery—if we can nab him."

"I wonder what's happening out there?" Nanoha wiggles with impatience as she moves to the open window and peers out. "Fate-chan's not transmitting now. I wish we could see."

They wait. The silence continues.

Fate is moving around the garden on the steep slope below the house, fiddling with the radio at her ear and seeming not to notice the almost invisible form that is hidden in the shrubbery. Slowly she moves towards the bushes. Then, when it is too late for the boy hidden there to take flight, she rushes the hiding place. A slender boy, about Nanoha's size, with olive skin and very black eyes, leaps up. Fate crashes against him and they go down in a tangle of arms and legs.

"I've got him!" Fate yells into the radio just before she leaps. As they came together, the boy shouts out a string of words in some strange tongue. Then the little walkie-talkie is knocked from Fate's hand and crushed beneath them as the two roll down the slope. The strange boy is fighting furiously to get away.

The boy is slender, but he is as lithe and slippery as an eel. No sooner does Fate get a grip on him than he breaks free and is almost gone. Just in time Fate grapples with him again and they go tumbling across the sloping lawn, winding up against a stone wall.

Once more the boy shouts a series of strange words. Fate doesn't waste any breath on words. She only hopes Hayate and Nanoha are coming fast!

They are coming, and Professor Brevil with them. When they heard Fate's shout over the walkie-talkie in the mummy case, Nanoha was the first out the door. Hayate and the professor trying the best they could to stay on her heels.

Down below they see the furious tussle. But before they can get across the terrace, someone else has entered the scene. This is a workman in blue overalls who runs towards the two below, dropping a shovel as he runs.

"It's one of the Salinas brothers, who do my gardening," the Professor says swiftly. "They‟re Filipinos. There are seven of them and I can never tell them apart, but they're all Judo experts. They're small, but they're very wiry, you know. He'll be able to help better than we can."

They slow down a bit - except for Nanoha. The gardener runs down the slope and bends over the two struggling teens. He flings an arm around the throat of the strange boy and lifts him kicking and struggling off Fate.

"I have intruder," he calls in a marked accent. "I hold him tight."

Fate gets slowly to her feet, somewhat out of breath just as Nanoha reaches them. Her hair has been pulled out of one of her twintails and has bits of twigs and leaves stuck in it. Her clothes are all disheaveled. But what makes Nanoha catch her breath and bite her tongue before she says anything, is the long raw scratch running across Fate's right cheek.

The kicking, struggling boy swings the man around in his efforts to get away.

"Watch him, he‟s a wildcat!" Fate huffs.

The other boy grunts something in his strange tongue. Mr. Smith shouts at him.

"Hold still. Not make me hurt you!" Then in his excitement he rattles off a string of foreign words. In the middle of them he gives a shriek, the boy darts away, over the wall, down the slope, and into the underbrush below, before Fate could even move.

At that moment Hayate and Professor Brevil reach them..

"What happened?" the professor cries. "How did he get away?"

The gardener turns. "I foolish," he says. "Biting not part of Judo so I do not think of it."

He holds out his right hand. A series of tooth marks make a line on the back and blood is trickling out of them. The strange boy has bitten deeply and savagely to get away."

"You did your best," Professor Brevil says. "Go and see the doctor immediately and have that hand dressed. Don't risk infection."

"Sorry so stupid," the gardener says.

He backs away and starts round the house to where his truck is parked. Like many gardeners in Uminari City, he and his brothers are independent businessmen who take care of several estates, driving from one to another.

Fate is still trying to get her breath back.

"Darn," she says in disappointment. "I thought we had him."

"I wonder who he is?" Nanoha says as she moves to stand next to Fate, gently removing some of the lawn debris from her now tangled blonde hair. "What was he doing here?"

"Spying on the house from the bushes," Fate says. "I saw him move. That's when I spoke to you."

"He undoubtedly could have told us a great deal," Hayate says, pinching her lip.

"Girls," Professor Brevil says, "I don‟t know what to make of this—"

They turn towards her expectantly.

"—but just after Fate-san tackled him, we heard the boy shout something which came clearly over the radio before it got smashed."

"Some foreign language," Fate agrees while tucking her shirt back in to her jeans.

"It was modern Arabic," Professor Brevil tells them. "And what the boy called out was, "I pray to the noble spirit of Ra-Orkon to come to my aid!‟ "

Hayate starts to say something, but her words are cut off by Fate's shout.

"Look out!" Fate yells and points.

They swing round swiftly and gaze with sudden alarm up the slope.

One of the huge granite balls, weighing at least a ton apiece, on top of the pillars at either side of the gate, has rolled from its place.

Now, gathering speed, it was bounding towards them.

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry for the cliff hanger!

I wasn't sure how to create an "accent" for the gardener. I hope it comes out OK? I want it to sound like English (well Japanese actually) is not his first tongue and that he speaks with a strong accent. But I don't want the gardener to sound like a stereotype or unintelligent. What do you think?

Now for my first omake - what Hayate was imagining when she thought about costuming her friends like famous detectives of yore:

* * *

**Omake Theatre:**

**Hayate smiles:** "Who's this I spy in the fedora and trench coat? It must be Dick Tracy!"

**Fate-chan:** "Grrrrr." She pulls the fedora down over her eyes to hide her face.

**Hayate chuckles, a twinkle in her eye:** "Who's this I spy wearing frumpy clothes, a wool coat and hat with a cup of tea in her hand? It must be Miss Marple!"

**Nanoha:** "Mou - Hayyyyate!" She shrugs ehr shoulders then sips her tea. '_mmm... earl grey, how english_,' she thinks to herself.

**Hayate chews on the pipe that sticks out of her mouth as she adjusts her Sherlock Holmes hat:** "Just using my incredible deductive reasoning."

_Signum is just grateful that somehow she got left out of Hayate's costume atrocity. _


	6. Freeze Frame

**Chapter 6 - Freeze Frame**

* * *

**~ {Ladies and gentlemen, due the omniscient power of yours truly, author-san, I have 'Freeze-framed" this moment so we can take the time to drift into the minds of our three lovely heroines to see what kinds of thoughts they have when they face the life threatening peril of being squished by a one ton rolling rock. Let's listen in:} ~**

* * *

Fate's thoughts:

'_Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!'_

'_Nanoha's luxuriant, soft, silky hair... the way she just whipped her head about has sent that glorious side ponytail dancing upon the air around her head. It's like a heavenly halo, the sun touched crimson highlights sparkle and flash like the morning sun on the horizon._

_Her beauty is beyond any to compare; her flaming locks of auburn hair, ivory skin and those eyes of blue, so blue, a blue you can dive right into. The kind of dive like cliff diving that makes you plunge deep into the depths… it's that kind of blue, but its even more. Blue like the heavens above? Not the ordinary sky blue, or the color of the cerulean paint flaking off of the the old mobil home trailer we use for the Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency back at the Wolkinritter Salvage Yard, or even the blue of the little flowers that spring up by the side of salvage yard's main entrance. Nanoha's eyes are blue like the sea, crystal clear blue- aqua blue, shimmering and crashing and churning. Looking into her eyes I can hear the waves falling against the shore, see the foam flying into the air. The spray mists my skin and I shiver when her blue eyes look in my direction. Look at me Nanoha, only me. Her eyes are blue like the sky right before the sun disappears- dark rich indigo, mysterious with specks of wild colors here and there, like a bonfire I warm my hands upon on a crisp autumn night. Her eyes are blue like that warm wool sweater that Nanoha knitted for me last Christmas - mmmm I love that sweater! - and I love to put it on when the air gets that chill- comfortable, warm, familiar. Her eyes are that kind of blue.'*_

'_Her smile is like a breath of spring, and her voice is soft like summer rain... '_

* * *

**~ {Okay folks, Author-san here and I would like to take this moment to interrupt Fate-chan's thoughts so we can put this all in proper perspective.**

**1\. This thought has taken place in .00236978th of a second. Moving lightening fast through Fate-chan's synapses. So quick that her conscious state of mind will take another four years to register this thought. That's just the way it is folks, Fate-chan is like a slow cook crock-pot … just put her on and set to simmer, dinner will be cooked given enough time, and enough stirring of the pot.**

**2\. Nanoha was actually screaming her head off like a banshee in an ear splitting screech at the moment Fate-chan was having this thought. Her voice was like summer rain? More like the cacophony of a typhoon. Obviously Fate-chan's objectivity when it comes to Nanoha is somewhat in question.**

**Now, let's return to the thoughts of our heroines as their lives hang in the balance.} ~**

* * *

Nanoha's Thoughts:

_'arrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhh! I can't die today. I've got granny panties on! Oh, and I haven't had a chance to try Dad's new strawberry cupcake recipe at Midori-ya Cafe yet. I'd really regret that. _

_Nope I can't die today, I won't! _

_Maybe if I give that hugemungus rolling stone a white devil glare, it just might crack into pebbles..._

_Speaking of staring, is Fate-chan staring at me with those deep crimson eyes of hers? _

_Did she see my granny panties? _

_I COULD JUST DIE if she saw my granny panties - oh wait... I just might die, there's a colossal rock tumbling down trying to squish me! _

_Drat - I still have library books to return. Yuuno won't like it if they are returned late. Be pretty hard to do if I am dead! Mou - Sorry Yuuno, but really which is worse - returning books late or being made into a pancake? Life's a bitch Yuuno so suck it up - as if I have time to be thinking about you!_

_Wait - did Fate-chan just get a nose bleed? Poor Fate-chan. She's just too cute. _

_I know - I WON'T DIE TODAY because Fate-chan needs me. Who will comfort her when she gets frightened by things that go bump in the night? And help her stay on track when she zones out. Besides - there is just no way in hell Fate-chan is going to see my granny panties! '_

* * *

**~ {Author-san again. Well our Nanoha is certainly a practical girl if nothing else.**

**Now on to Hayate... I am a little scared ... but we've come this far together reader, I dare say we shall endure!} ~**

* * *

Hayate's thoughts:

_'Ahhhh - what if I set up something like this..._

_The tall pink haired sleuth stood hidden in the shadows under a sign with flickering neon letters -_

_ÉMILE'S 24 H UR BAR_

_A slight din of voices drifted through the doorway and fell muted upon the hard cold stone surfaces that surrounded her. The air held a mist of rain and the dampness caused the pink haired sleuth to pull her trench coat closed. The wet cobble stones reflected what little light came from the street light further down the lane._

_A man turned into the lane and approached, entering the bar. This was what the sleuth had been waiting for. She steps out of the shadows, tips her brown tweed hat lower over her eyes, her gloved hands pull out of her right pocket a fake mustache which she plasters on under her nose, and out of the left pocket a very large magnifying glass. She steps into the bar... and immediately bumps into the barmaid carrying a full tray of drinks which spill over several burly customers. A fight breaks out. The French police inspector tries to avoid the chaos by leaping to her left - only to land spewed across a table which breaks under her weight. She grabs at what ever is near to prevent her from falling, successfully pulling down the pants of her blue haired suspect who trips and falls hitting his head and knocking himself unconscious. Once again the inept and incompetent police chief inspector, Signum Clouseau, aka the Pink Panther somehow catches the culprit._

_Hehehehe - Signum as the klutzy Clouseau. I got to see this! Zafira can play the butler! That's perfect!'_

* * *

**~ { Hayate may be the self proclaimed "brains" behind the Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency, but at this moment she is pretty clueless that she is about to be smooshed flat by a one ton rolling boulder. That's just the way she is - always planning another costume fiasco, (at least that is what Signum calls them).**

**And now my dear readers - on with the story. Will our three P.I.s and their client make it out alive? Or will they be steamrollered? Look forward to our next exciting chapter in the travails of the Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency and the Case of the Whispering Mummy.} ~**

* * *

**A/N:** Just a short excursion for a bit of fun. Thank you from readers who sent me PMs.

Now for Omake Theater # 2

* * *

**Omake Theater:**

**Signum:** "Hayate - Go to your reum"

**Hayate:** "Reum?"

**Signum:** "Reum"

**Hayate:** "Reum?"

**Signum:** "Are you deef? Reum! Reum! Go to your reum you naughty geal!"

**Hayate:** "Inspector Clouseau I presume?"

**Signum:** "What do you expect? You dreassed me like thees"

**Hayate:** "We're in Japan Signum, you can stop with the overblown french accent."

**Signum:** "..."


	7. The Professor and the Mummy

**Chapter 7 - The Professor and the Mummy**

* * *

As the great stone ball bounds towards them, Fate takes Nanoha's hand without thinking and prepares to run. The professor's sharp cry halts them.

"Stand still!" she calls. "Don‟t move an inch."

The professor has seen that the slope of the ground will cause the granite ball to miss them.

It does so, turning in its course and bumping past them ten feet away to crash against a clump of Kobushi Magnolia trees farther down the slope.

"Wow!" Hayate mops her forehead. "I was going to duck right over in that direction."

"That thing must weigh a ton." Nanoha exclaims, her adrenialin still high as she looks down at her hand still clutched tightly by her crimson eyed friend.

"Slightly more," Professor Brevil says. "A ball of granite that size, containing a cubic footage of—let me see . . ."

"Professor!"

They looked up. Barkridge, the butler, is rushing down towards them from the house.

"I saw from the kitchen window what happened," he pants. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes," the woman says impatiently. "As you can see. Although I think I may have a few more grays in my hair now," she tucks a few strands that have escaped her bun behind her ear. "And I know what you're going to say. But don't say it. I forbid you to."

"I must, ma'am," Barkridge answers. "It's the curse of Ra-Orkon. That's what made the accident happen. Ra-Orkon will kill you, ma'am. He may kill all of us!"

"The curse of Ra-Orkon?" Hayate's eyes light up. "Is there a curse on the mummy, Professor Brevil?"

"No, no, certainly not," the professor says. "You're too young to remember, but when I first discovered the tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the newspapers ran a lot of ridiculous stories about a certain inscription which . . ."

"It said, 'Woe to all who disturb the sleep of Ra-Orkon, The Just, who sleeps within'," Barkridge states, his voice shaking. "And one by one almost everyone in the original party has died or suffered severe injury because—"

"Barkridge!" the professor thunders. "You‟re forgetting yourself!"

"Yes, ma'am," says the butler, obviously agitated. "I'm sorry, master."

"The inscription says," Professor Brevil tells Hayate, " 'Ra-Orkon, The Just, sleeps within. Woe if his sleep be disturbed.‟ Meaning, woe to Ra-Orkon. It is true that Lord Carter and I disagreed over the exact wording of the inscription, but I know that I am correct."

She pauses, then adds, "It is also true some mystery surrounds Ra-Orkon. Lord Carter and I discovered him really by accident. His tomb was well hidden in a rocky cliff. Inside were none of the usual relics found in tombs of royalty. Nothing but the plain mummy case with Ra-Orkon in it, and his favourite royal cat mummified with him. It was almost as if he had been buried in such a way that he would attract no attention. If any of the grave robbers of the time had discovered him, they wouldn't have got anything from his tomb!

"However, the care with which he was embalmed made it clear that he was no ordinary man. Yet we cannot even get a date for his death. His name is confusing. The name Ra is associated with kings of earlier dynasties. The Orkon part of his name suggests the Libyan influence—the Libyans began to move into Egypt slightly more than three thousand years ago and eventually became the rulers of Egypt. I want to establish an exact date for his burial. Then I shall make a close study to see if I can learn why he was buried so plainly, and so secretly.

"As for what Barkridge says about harm coming to the members of our party, you must not let Barkridge mislead you. Lord Carter died in an automobile accident. Aleph Tachibana, a brilliant but self-taught man, my secretary and the father of my friend Professor Tachibana, who lives over there"—she gestures towards the opposite slope— "was murdered in a Cairo bazaar. The photographer and Lord Carter's personal secretary were injured in the accident that killed Lord Carter but lived for many years afterwards. The Egyptian overseer of the labour force died of a snake bite.

"It is only natural that in almost a quarter of a century a certain number of accidents should happen to the members of any given group, and some should die. Believe me— there is no curse!"

Fate and Nanoha look at each other. They want to believe her, but it isn't easy.

"Oh, there's one thing more," the professor says. "It can't have anything to do with this whispering, but last week, the very day Ra-Orkon arrived, a Libyan rug merchant, named Achmed Something-or-other, came and tried to persuade me to give Ra-Orkon to him. He said he represented the House of Hamid, in Libya, and Ra-Orkon was his employer's ancestor. Said it had been revealed in a vision by a magician. What nonsense! I sent the fellow off in a hurry. As the merchant left, he warned me that Ra-Orkon's spirit would give me trouble unless I allowed him to take Ra-Orkon back for proper burial by his family."

Fate and Nanoha exchange still another glance. The whole thing is sounding worse to them by the minute, even though Hayate looks very cheerful about the eeriness of the mystery.

"Now," the professor says, "let us forget about silly superstition and see why that ornamental concrete ball rolled off the gatepost."

She leads the way up the slope to the stone gatepost atop which the granite ball had been set. They quickly see that it has been held in place by a ring of mortar making a small collar for it to sit in. However, time and the weather seemed to have weakened the cement ring. On one side it has worn away. Furthermore, a settlement of the ground has caused the stone gatepost to lean a bit downhill.

"It's easy to see what happened," Professor Brevil comments. "The weather wore away the retaining ring of mortar and with the slight slope of the gatepost its possible a very mild earthquake tremor started it just now. We have dozens of such tiny tremors in this area every year, as we are situated over a major fault line."

Unconvinced and shaking his head, the butler leaves them. The others climb back up to the terrace and enter the museum room, where they gather round the mummy case of Ra-Orkon.

"You were very ingenious," the professor says to Hayate, "in making the mummy whisper. However, your solution cannot be the correct one, for there is no radio hidden inside the mummy case."

"Have you looked, ma'am?" Hayate asks respectfully. The professor hesitates.

"Why, no," she says. "I suppose I should."

She removes the walkie-talkie Hayate had put inside the linen folds that wrapped Ra-Orkon, then feels round to see if anything else is hidden. Finding nothing, she carefully lifts the mummy. They could all see that nothing is beneath him.

Now it is Hayate who begins to look baffled. She begins to inspect the mummy case itself—first the lid, then the case. She even tilts it slightly to look under it.

"No wires," she says finally. "No receiving set—nothing. I'm sorry, Professor, my first theory has proved wrong."

"First theories often do," the professor tells her. "But I hope you will have a second theory that may explain the mummy's whispering."

"I do not have any theory at the moment, ma'am," Hayate answers. "You say the mummy whispers to you only when you are alone?"

"Yes." The professor nods. "And so far, only in the late afternoon." Hayate pinches her lip.

"Does anyone else occupy this house with you?" she asks.

"Only Barkridge. He has been in my employ for ten years. Before that he was an actor. In vaudeville, I think. A cleaning woman comes in three times a week, but Barkridge is both chef and chauffeur, as well as butler."

"What about the gardener?" Hayate asks. "Does he happen to be a new employee?"

"Oh, no." The professor shakes her head. "The Salinas brothers—I mentioned seven of them—have worked for me for eight years. Sometimes one comes, sometimes another, but not one of them has ever been inside this house."

"Mmm," Hayate ponders, a scowl on her round features. Then she nods. "Yes," she says, "I must hear the mummy whisper by myself."

"But apparently it will whisper only to me," the professor objects. "It would not whisper to Barkridge or to Professor Tachibana."

"Yes," Nanoha pipes up. "Why should it whisper to you, Hayate? You're a total stranger to it."

"Now wait a minute, wait a minute," Fate protests. "I don't like this kind of talk, as if the mummy—well, as if it knew what is going on."

"It is not scientific," Professor Brevil admits. "Yet it almost seems as if somehow it does know."

Hayate looks confident. "I believe," she says, "that the mummy will whisper to me. Then I will have more information to work on. We will come back this evening, Professor, and make the test."

* * *

~:~

"Gosh, where is Hayate, anyway?" Fate-chan demands, looking at the electric clock on the wall of Headquarters later that afternoon. "It's a quarter past six, and she told us to meet her here at six o'clock sharp."

"Didn't she tell her aunt where she was going?" Nanoha asks, looking up from the notes she has been writing down about the morning's episode. After their trip to the Professor's she has been working all afternoon in the library, where she has a part-time job, so she is only now getting around to filling in her notes on the case of the whispering mummy.

Fate is in a bad mood. It always happens after Nanoha goes to work at the library but it is more so today as she is still on edge after their close encounters with the intruder and granite ball that almost squashed them all.

"No, she didn't," Fate says a bit sharply. Hearing the edge in her voice and knowing that it isn't Nanoha's fault for her mood, Fate clears her throat and says in a gentler voice, "But she went off in the car with Hisakawa-san. Let's take a look and see if the car is in sight."

She strides to the See-All and elevates it. Fate and Nanoha had built the handmade periscope together out of old mirror glass, rainspouts and a scratched camera lens that they polished to repair the scar along it's rounded surface. All junk found in the Wolkinritter Salvage Yard.

It was Hayate who had named it the "See-All". Fate rolls her eyes remembering the moment. Hayate had donned a fluttering cape and placed an eyepatch over her left eye as she swaggered up to the roof of their headquaters. Raising her arm across her brow to shade her eyes, Hayate took on the roll of a seafaring pirate.

"Alright you rottin' crew... raise the See-All," Hayate had shouted with a few "Arr-arr, me maties" and "Shiver me timbers" thrown in for good measure.

Hayate might be their leader - but Fate isn't sure she can follow Hayate down every path that girl wants to take them.

"There it is now!" she exclaims, peering into the eyepiece. "Coming down the road from town. Hayate's leaning out the window. Maybe she's trying to reach us on the walkie-talkie."

They hasten back to the desk. On the desk was the small loudspeaker which Hayate has rigged up so when there was a telephone call they could all hear what was being said. Only, unknown to them, she has rebuilt it during the past week. It is now a walkie-talkie unit as well, and could transmit anything that is said in the office unless it is turned off.

"Hayate and her mind reading!" Fate growls as they seat themselves. "This morning she was listening to every word we said about the letters from Mr. Scrya and Mrs. Nakajima as she road home in the Rolls Royce."

She leans towards the loudspeaker and clicks a switch.

"This is Headquarters," she says. Calling First Investigator. Can you read me, First Detective?"

She clicks over the switch and a power hum sounds from the speaker. Over it came Hayate's voice.

"This is First Detective. I will join you as soon as I can. I note that you have been using the See-All _'me-maties'_. Lower it when it is not in use. Over and out."

Fate shivers before replying "Heard and understood," clicking off the speaker. Nanoha goes over to the periscope.

"Hayate doesn't miss much," she says. "The car is coming in the gate and she's getting out. She's carrying a little zipper bag and heading this way. She'll be here in a minute. Hisakawa-san and the car are waiting."

She lowers the See-All and resumes her seat.

"I wonder where she went," she speculates. Then, as a few minutes passe and there is no sign of their partner, she adds, "And I wonder what's keeping her? Do you suppose she got stuck in the Maze's Tunnel?"

But at that moment they hear the special rap on the floor which tells them one of their group is entering. The trap-door rises and a head and shoulders appears.

Fate and Nanoha stare down. Half inside the trailer is a middle aged woman who has brunette hair streaked with gray put up in a loose bun atop her head, and wearing large round, gold-rimmed glasses.

"Professor Brevil!" Fate yelps. "How did you get here? What's happened to Hayate?"

"The curse of Ra-Orkon has befallen her." The middle aged woman climbs into the tiny office with surprising agility. "Ra-Orkon has changed her into me."

Then she sweeps off the wig, the spectacles, and wipes away the aging makeup on her face, she grins at them.

"If I fooled you," she says, "I ought to be able to fool a mummy. Especially a mummy that has its eyes shut."

"Hayate!" Nanoha exclaims.

"Gee-wiz, Hayate!" Fate says in bewilderment. "You did have us fooled. Why are you made up like Professor Brevil?"

"As a test," Hayate says, as she finishes climbing into Headquarters and puts the wig, spectacles into the zipper bag she is carrying. In the better light they could now see that some age lines had been drawn on her forehead and around her eyes with a make-up pencil to help make her youthful face seem much older.

"I went to see Mr. Grant," she says. "I told him what, the professor looks like and he made me up."

Mr. Grant is a make-up specialist whom they had met during an earlier adventure. He was a wizard at altering the appearance of almost anyone.

"But why?" Nanoha wants to know.

"To fool the mummy," Hayate says.

"To fool the mummy!" Fate yells. "What does that mean?"

"If the mummy thinks I'm Professor Brevil... perhaps it'll whisper to me," Hayate tells her. "Since apparently it won't whisper to anyone else."

"Now wait a minute!" Fate shouts. "The way you're talking you'd think this mummy could see and hear as well as talk. Darn-it, it's only a mummy. It's been dead for three thousand years. Anytime I'm on a case where somebody has to disguise herself to fool a mummy dead that long, I stop being on that case. I vote we forget the mummy and go looking for that lost cat."

Nanoha starts to speak, swallows, and stops. Hayate is pinching her lip, looking thoughtful.

"Then you don't want to come with us now to see if I can get the mummy to whisper?" she asks.

Now it is Fate's turn to hesitate. She is already regretting her outburst. But she had uttered the words and, being normally stubborn, she is stuck with them. She gave a short nod.

"That's what I said," she grumbles. "Next time maybe the whole roof will fall in. That curse was certainly trying hard enough to get at us this morning."

"All right," Hayate agrees. "Since there are three of us, there's no reason why we can't handle more than one case at a time. You go to interview Mrs. Nakajima, the owner of the cat, and Nanoha and I will go to interview the mummy as planned. All right, Nanoha?"

Nanoha knew that Fate hadn't really expected Hayate to take her seriously, but Hayate is the head of the firm. As she says, there is no reason why they couldn't investigate more than one case at a time. So she nods.

"Very well," Hayate says. "You'll just have time to get a first interview before dark, Fate-chan. Since we'll have to use the Rolls-Royce, ask Largo or Zest if one of them can drive you over to South Uminari City where Mrs Nakajima resides in the small truck."

Fate hesitates. She doesn't want to leave Nanoha to go back to see the whispering mummy without her. SHe was stuck though because she had already put her foot down over this. She looks over to Nanoha hoping the auburn haired girl will help her out of this mess.

"It's okay, Fate-chan," Nanoha says in a soothing voice to her. "We understand that you don't do to well with things that seem to be supernatural and someone needs to help Mrs. Nakajima find her cat."

Fate's mouth drops. She can't believe Nanoha just sold her out like that in front of Hayate of all people. Hayate will never let her live it down she is sure.

Then she says gruffly, "All right, Hayate, Nanoha. I'll do that."

She lifts the trap-door, drops through, and begins crawling through the tunnel to the entrance behind the printing press in, the workshop. She emerges and zigzags her way through the piles of junk towards the office. Zest is just locking up, but agrees to drive Fate to Mrs. Nakajima's neighborhood in Uminari City.

'_Okay,'_ she thinks, she'll show the both of them. She'll find that lost cat while maybe Hayate and Nanoha were being demolished in some nasty way by the curse of Ra-Orkon. If that is what they want, let them have it!

Tears well-up in Fate's sad crimson eyes. She turns her head to stare out at the passing scenerly so Zest doesn't notice.

* * *

**A/N: **_Thank you once again for reading, and for the 'pms' I received for this story. I am always open to hearing your thoughts whether as a review or in a message._

_I just got my hands on the 1939 "Tales of the Witch Doll" a Penny Parker Mystery by Mildred A Wirt Benson published in 1939 which has become an inspiration for my writing process here. I know my story may seem slow but I thought to write in in this early mid-20th century style. What I don't know is if it is too slow. The traditional intended audience for a mystery story like this would be 10 - 13 yr olds. So, I'll understand if it does not become your cup of tea. Still I do hope there is enough of Nanoha, Fate-chan and Hayate to keep your interest. Please let me know as it helps._

_PS: A reminder that I do not own or profit from any aspect of the MGLN Universe or from the boys detective novel that I am adapting for this story. The __Three Investigators__ by Robert Arthur, Jr._


	8. The Jackal Enters Stage Left

**Chapter 08: The Jackal God Enters Stage Left**

* * *

**SLIGHTLY LESS than an hour later...**

Fate is at the home of Mrs. Nakajima talking about her lost cat.

* * *

**At almost the same time...**

At the home of Professor Brevil, Hayate Yagami enters the museum room alone and turns on the overhead lights. It is still daylight outside, but as the sun has set behind the ridge of the canyon, deep twilight envelopes the big house.

Hayate enters the room with the slower movements of the older woman. She goes directly to the French windows and swings them open. Then she moves to the wooden case which holds the mummy of Ra-Orkon. She lifts off the top of the case and bends over staring down at the still features of the mummy.

"Ra-Orkon," Hayate says loudly. "Speak and I will listen. I will try to understand."

Hayate speaks in a good imitation of Professor Brevil's voice. Hayate is wearing the wig, and spectacles, provided for her by Mr. Grant, the make-up specialist. She is also wearing one of the professor's linen coats and a scarf of the professor's. It was not too difficult for the girl to make herself look very much like the famous Egyptologist.

In an adjoining room, Nanoha and the professor wait anxiously for the results of the test. Barkridge is busy in the kitchen and knows nothing of the impersonation.

Hayate leans over the mummy case and says once more: "Great Ra-Orkon, speak to me. Make me understand."

Is that a murmur she hears? She turns her head to listen better, and now she hears words. Strange, harsh words in no language she has ever heard before, delivered in a sibilant whisper.

Startled, Hayate jerks her head up and looks round the room. She is totally alone. The door into the room where the professor and Nanoha wait is shut.

She brings her ear again close to the unmoving lips of the mummy and the whispering continues, urgent, commanding. But—commanding her to do what?

At least Hayate knows now that the professor has not been the victim of her own imagination. The mummy really does whisper!

Strapped to her belt, under her coat, Hayate has a portable voice recorder. Modern investigation procedures require scientific equipment, and she had set about securing the "best" for the The Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency. Gradually they have acquired quite a bit of equipment, making or rebuilding most of it from worn-out or junked apparatus from days gone by, that Hyate's aunts have acquired in the normal operation of The Wolkinritter Salvage Yard.

Now, leaning over the mummy case, Hayate clips the small sensitive microphone of the tape recorder to the linen wrappings only an inch from the mummy's lips.

"I cannot understand you, Ra-Orkon," Hayate says loudly. "Speak to me again."

At that the whispering, which had momentarily ceased, resumes. A long string of words, uttered in a mere whisper, follows. Hayate hopes that the sensitive mike will catch the faint sounds.

For more than a minute the whispering continues. Then Hayate, turning to try to hear better, catches her wig in a splinter on the edge of the ancient mummy case.

Her movement rips the wig from her head, and as it comes loose, the bobby pins and clips that held it pull painfully.

"Ouch!" Hayate says loudly in her own voice. She makes a quick grab to get the wig back, looses her balance, and falls heavily. As she falls, her glasses come off and her scarf is pulled over her eyes.

Blindly, she stands up and is fumbling to get her disguise back in place when the door bursts open, the professor and Nanoha rush in.

"What is it, Hayate?" Nanoha asks.

"We heard you cry out," the professor explains. "Has anything happened?"

"Just my own carelessness," Hayate says, chagrined. "I‟m afraid now I've spoiled everything. The mummy was whispering to me—"

"Then you fooled it!" Nanoha cries.

"I don't know what I did," Hayate says, sounding cross. "But let me see if it will whisper some more."

She picks up the microphone which has been pulled loose as she fell and has clattered to the floor beside her, and leans over the mummy case again."

"Speak, Ra-Orkon," she urges. "Speak again."

They all wait, but total silence follows, broken only by their breathing.

"It's no use," Hayate says at last. "He won't whisper any more. Let's see if the tape recorder caught anything."

She leads the way into the next room. Here she removes what remains of her disguise. She places the portable tape recorder on a desk, rewinds the tape and starts it over again with the Play button depressed.

For a moment there is only the hissing noise of the tape. Then, by listening intently, they are able to hear sounds—words, apparently. The words that the whispering mummy had uttered are muffled by the tape hiss caused by extreme amplification.

"Can you understand it, Professor?" Nanoha asks hopefully when the brief bit of tape comes to an end with Hayate's own "Ouch!" sounding out loudly.

Professor Brevil, seems very bewildered, shaking her head. "At times I thought I caught a word, but not clearly," she says. "If it is a language of the Middle East, ancient or modern, only one man in Japan might understand it. He's my old friend, Professor Tachibana, whom I mentioned to you earlier." She gestures towards the window through which the home of Professor Tachibana is just visible.

"He doesn't live very far away," the professor continues, "but we have to go all round the rim of the canyon to get to him. It will take us only five or ten minutes to reach his home if your chauffeur will drive us there. I propose we go there immediately and let him hear this tape. I have already told him about the mummy whispering to me, and he offered to help if he could, though at the time I don't think he really believed me."

Hayate and Nanoha agree that it is a good plan and the professor calls Barkridge.

"Barkridge," she says, "the girls and I are going to call on Professor Tachibana. You stay and guard the premises. If anything unusual happens, phone me at once."

"Yes, ma'am," Barkridge agrees.

Inside five minutes, Nanoha, Hayate, and the professor are on their way in the Rolls- Royce. By now it is almost dark. After they have gone. Barkridge goes to the kitchen, where he had been polishing some Oriental brass-work, and resumes his task. After a short time, a slight noise outside attracts his attention.

It is not repeated, but he rises and, grasping an ancient sword which was part of the professor's collection, he makes his way into the museum room. Everything seems in order. The lid of the mummy case is back in place and the windows are shut, as he has left them after the others had departed.

He opens a window and steps out on to the terrace. The moment he does so, a voice sounds in his ears. A strange harsh voice seeming to utter some command. Barkridge, his nerves already on edge, stares wildly all round him.

He sees a movement in the shrubbery, and lifts his sword as if to protect himself. A figure moves towards him in the twilight. It is the figure of a man—but it has the head of jackal, eyes gleaming as they stare at Barkridge.

Barkridge turns deathly pale.

"Anubis!" he chokes. "The jackal god!"

Anubis, the dreaded jackal god of Ancient Egypt, takes another step towards him, lifts a hand, and points it sternly at him.

Barkridge drops the sword and then, overcome by terror, crumples beside it in a faint.

* * *

**A/N: **This is a bit of a filler chapter but it is also an important segue to the action that is coming next. From here the story will speed up quite a bit - and next chapter features Fate..


	9. Trapped!

**9 Trapped!**

* * *

Driving Professor Brevil and the two girls to the opposite side of the canyon, Hisakawa stops the Rolls-Royce in front of the entrance to Professor Tachibana's garage. A short bridge connects the garage to the road. The house, built down the slope, is below it.

"Ladies, Professor, the road is too narrow for me to park here," he says. "Someone might come round that corner too fast and scratch my paintwork."

Hisakawa is as proud of the old car as if it were his own, and he tended it like a baby.

"Hayate," Nanoha turns to face her brunette friend in the car, "Why don't I have Hisakawa-san drive me back to Professor Brevil's house so I can meet up with Fate-chan? Then he can come back for both of you."

Hayate smirks at the other brunette. "Ohhh I understand Nanoha, you can't wait another moment to be with your long tall blondie - can you!"

"Mou, Hayate! I just thought it might be a good idea to let Fate know what is going on, that's all." A pout forms on Nanoha's face.

"And just what is going on Nanoha? I mean between you and Fate, hmmm?" Hayate winks at the red faced girl sitting next to her.

"Stop teasing me Hayate. You know you hurt Fate's feelings earlier. You could have been a bit more understanding since you know that she doesn't handle spooky things to well, or feeling like she doesn't fit in. I'm still a bit angry at you. Although I'm also a bit angry at Fate-chan for letting her pride get the better of her."

Hayate's expression became serious as she listens. "Okay, Nanoha you're right. While I still think it was a good idea to have Fate-chan go see Mrs. Nakajima about her cat, I probably could have done so in a way that didn't put Fate on the spot like I did."

"Well, Fate let herself fall into that trap."

Hayate smiles thinking back on the expression Fate wore on her face. "Yeah she did."

"Hmm-hmmm," Hisakawa clears his throat. "Will you two girls decide what you want to do? It's not safe to be stopped here for long."

"Right, yes, ah... please take Nanoha back to the professor's house Hisakawa-san. I'll call when I am ready for you to return to pick up Professor Brevil and myself."

Climbing out, Brevil and Hayate start down the cement steps which leads past the garage to the side of Professor Tachibana's home below. When they ring the chime bell, Tachibana answers the door.

"This is a pleasant surprise, Professor Brevil," he says. "Come in, come in. I've just been working on my dictionary of root words of the Middle East. What brings you here?"

When Professor Brevil explains that she has with her a tape recording of Ra- Orkon actually whispering, Tachibana shows great excitement.

"Unbelievable!" he says. "We must play it at once. Let's see if we can understand what the old chap is trying to say."

He leads the way into a study crowded with books, and a home recording studio. He takes a few minutes to bring out of a cupboard a tape recorder that was used for making professional recordings.

"I don't get to use this ol' beauty very often anymore. These days its all digital." He casts his eyes over his home recording studio. Swiftly he slides the tape into place on f the recorder and starts it going.

As the harsh whispering of Ra-Orkon, much amplified, fills the room, they all listen intently. But soon Professor Tachibana's excitement and expectation changes to perplexity and dismay.

"I'm sorry, Brevil," he says. "I couldn't make out a word of it. But there's a lot of tape hiss on the recording. Let me get a new noise suppressor I've just received, and try the tape again. We can record it into the computer. Maybe we'll have better luck."

He leaves the room, returning presently with a small attachment. He places this on the tape machine and sets up a microphone to record the tape into the computer. They prepare to listen again.

**It was at about the same moment when...**

On the other side of the canyon, the light truck from The Wolkenritter Salvage Yard pulls up in front of Professor Brevil's home. It was quite dark now and only a single light shone in the dwelling.

"Looks like nobody's at home, Fate-chan," Largo, the driver, says as Fate hops out.

"Barkridge should be here," Fate says. "When I telephoned to the mobile phone in the Rolls-Royce, Hisakawa said he was driving the professor, Nanoha and Hayate over to a house on the other side of the canyon to consult with someone, but that they would be returning here once they were done. So I said I'd have you drive me here to meet them. I'll wait and keep Barkridge company until they get back."

"Okay," Largo says. "I'll head out then. Take care."

Then Largo and the truck are gone. Fate goes to the front door and rings the bell. While she waits for an answer, she thinks about the case she is handling and what she had learned from her interview with Mrs. Nakajima.

Mrs. Nakajima had talked a great deal, and very fast, but when you boiled it down, she hadn't really said too much. The gist of it was that her lovely Abyssinian cat, a very rare breed, had been missing for a week. Most Abyssinian cats, Mrs. Nakajima said, are wild and unfriendly, but her wonderful Sphinx was different. He was as gentle as a lamb and would go to anyone. She was very much afraid that someone had picked him up and taken him away, or else that he had wandered off and couldn't find his way home again.

She was sure that The Uminari All-Girl Detective Agency, who had done such wonderful work getting back the parrot her friend Miss Waggoner had lost, would find her precious cat.

Fate had had a hard time steering the conversation in the right direction. Finally, though, she had succeeded in getting a description of the cat. It was tawny with white paws, but she couldn't mistake it, Mrs. Nakajima told her, because of one very peculiar thing about it—it had mismatched eyes. Most Abyssinian cats had yellow or orange eyes, but Sphinx had one orange eye and one blue eye.

Mismatched eyes in cats, though not common, were not unknown, Mrs. Nakajima said. Of course, it meant that Sphinx couldn't win any prizes as a show cat, but on the other hand it gave him the strangest, wisest, most knowing look—as if he understood everything that was being said and could answer if he wanted to.

Sphinx's picture had been in local newspapers and magazines many times because of his eyes, and Mrs. Nakajima showed Fate a color picture of the cat that had appeared in a local magazine just six months before. It showed a very nice looking cat with a tawny coat, two white forepaws, and mismatched eyes that gave him a rather eerie appearance.

Fate, having gathered all the information she could, got away as quickly as possible. Now that she had seen Mrs. Nakajima, she could rejoin the others. She had finally decided that it was her duty to be with them when they faced the whispering mummy's curse.

She gave up waiting and opens the front door. She enters and calls out: "Hello! Barkridge! Where are you? Is anybody here?"

There is no answer. Fate looks round. Nothing seems wrong. She calls out again, then she walks down the passage to the museum room. The door is open and the overhead light on. Everything seems to be in order, and the mummy case is closed. Near the window the statue of Anubis stands quietly where it is suppose to be.

Nevertheless, Fate has an uneasy feeling that something is not right. She can't tell what it is, but a prickly sensation at the base of her spine makes her edgy.

She eases slowly into the spooky museum room. She is tempted to open the mummy case and peek in at Ra-Orkon, but decides against it. Suppose the mummy starts whispering to her? Fate feels a tingle go right down her spine and shudders.

'_No way am I doing that! Ugh, way too Creeeepy!' _she thinks to herself.

Instead, she crosses to an open French window and looks out. In the dark garden a little glow still lingers in the sky. Not even a breeze stirs. Fate feels that prickly sensation at the base of her spine getting stronger. Darn it, why didn't Hayate and the others get back? Where is Nanoha?

'_I hope nothing has happened. I'll never forgive myself if anything bad happened to Nanoha...' _And then as an after thought, _ 'Oh, and Hayate too of course.' _

She just decided to call Hisakawa on his mobile phone in the Rolls-Royce again when something out on the terrace catches her eye. To see it clearly, she has to step outside. Then she sees that the object on the tiles is a sword. Perplexed, Fate picks it up. It is a very old sword, made of bronze. She deduces that it is part of the professor's collection. As she holds it, a sound behind her makes her whirl round.

A movement in the bushes makes Fate's heart thump. Then a small animal bounds out and comes towards her. It stops, eases up to him, and rubs itself against her leg, uttering a loud purr of satisfaction.

"Cat!" Fate laughs aloud at her own alarm, brushing her blonde bangs from her eyes. "Just a cat!"

She puts down the sword and picks up the cat. It is a large, tawny Tom, and it seems perfectly friendly. It goes on purring as she holds it. Then Fate, getting a good look at it, almost drops it.

It has one orange and one blue eye!

"What the heck?!" Fate exclaims. "It's Sphinx! Mrs. Nakajima's cat! And I've found him right here. I'll certainly have the laugh on Hayate when she gets here and discovers that I've solved the missing cat case all by myself." Fate smirks with a mischief gleam in her red eyes. _'And I bet it'll make Nanoha happy too.' _She thinks as she pictures Nanoha giving her a big congratulatory hug with a fuming Hayate in the background.

She is too tickled by the thought of Hayate's surprise, (and Nanoha's hug!) to wonder at the strange coincidence that made the missing Sphinx turn up at this spot at this moment. Instead, she turns to take the cat into the house.

As she turns, something hits her legs from behind. She goes sprawling on the terrace, the cat flying out of her arms and darting off into the bushes. The next second, Fate is fighting for her life to get away from a boy who has tackled her and now seemed to be all over her. Fate's face is pushed into the patio brick scraping her right cheek and chin which was already injured from her tussle earlier in the day, and a metallic taste fills her mouth as she bites her tongue

"Ouch!"

Then she twists round and gets a grip on the boy's waist and is able to get a look at him. It is the boy she had tackled in the garden that morning.

Fate is so surprised she almost looses her hold. The boy nearly squirms free. But Fate gets an arm-hold and twists him over on the bricks. She kneels over the strange boy, holding him down helpless.

"Who are you?" she demands. "What are you hanging around here for? Why did you tackle me just now?"

The other boy, who has an olive complexion and very black eyes, seems to be fighting to hold back tears of rage.

"You steal Grandfather Ra-Orkon!" he shouts. "Then you try to steal my cat. But I, Hamid of the House of Hamid, stop you."

Fate blinks in bewilderment.

"What do you mean I stole Grandfather Ra-Orkon?" she asks. "And your cat? First place, it isn't your cat, it belongs to Mrs. Nakajima. In the second place, I didn't steal it, it came out and wanted to make friends with me."

The boy she is holding down stares at her, scowling fiercely.

"You do not know about Grandfather Ra-Orkon?" he asks. "You did not take him away?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Fate tells him. "If you're talking about the mummy why do you call him grandfather? He's three thousand years old. And anyway, he's right in there inside in the mummy case."

The boy shakes his head.

"He is gone," he says. "Two men stole him to-night, a while ago, when no one was here."

"Stole Ra-Orkon!" Fate exclaims. "I don't believe it."

"Is true," the other boy said. "Hamid of the House of Hamid, from Libya, does not lie."

Fate turns her head to look into the museum room. The mummy case looks undisturbed. But if this boy who calls himself Hamid is telling the truth, and the mummy was gone, the whole case has taken a very surprising turn.

"Listen," she says. "All I know is that the mummy was whispering to Professor Brevil, and we are trying to help her solve the mystery. Maybe you can explain how he came to be whispering?"

The boy she is holding down looks bewildered.

"Grandfather Ra-Orkon whispering?" he asks. "I do not understand. What mystery is this?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," Fate tells him emphatically. "You seem to know a lot about the mummy. But maybe I know some things you don't. If you tell me why you were hanging round here this morning and what you want, maybe between us we can solve the mystery."

As Fate speaks, she is thinking that if she could get some more clues to the mystery of the whispering mummy from Hamid, she might be able to wrap up both the mummy case and the case of Mrs. Nakajima's missing cat before Hayate and Nanoha return. She is human enough to want to get ahead of Hayate just once.

The olive-skinned boy hesitates. Then he nods.

"Very good," he said. "Hamid of the House of Hamid extends you his trust. Let me up and we will talk."

Fate stands up and dusts herself off, spitting out a bit of blood from her mouth. Hamid did likewise. Then he turns and called a series of strange words into the darkness.

"I am calling my cat," he explains. "In it lives the spirit of Ra-Orkon, and it will help us find the mummy."

They wait, but the cat does not come out of the darkness.

"I'm telling you," Fate says, "that cat is Mrs. Nakajima's cat, Sphinx. Mismatched eyes, tawny fur, two white forepaws. It fits the description exactly."

"No," said Hamid positively. "Forepaws black, not white. Black like Ra-Orkon's favorite cat, whose mummy was placed with his in the secret burial chamber many centuries ago."

Fate scratches her head. It was true she hadn't taken time to check the forepaws. Maybe she made a mistake about the cat. Still, it seemed strange to run into another cat with mismatched eyes the very night she started out to look for a missing cat with that same unusual feature.

"We can settle that later," she says. "Let me see if the mummy is really gone."

She leads the way into the museum room. After a moment of trepidation, after all, Fate still doesn't like being around anything the least bit supernatural, she and Hamid together lift the lid off the mummy case. What Hamid had said was true. The mummy case is now totally empty.

"He's gone!" Fate exclaims. "What could have happened to him?"

"You Japanese girls, you had him taken away!" Hamid cries. "You have stolen my grandfather!"

"Now wait a minute, Hamid," Fate says, thinking hard. "I don't know anything about this. Neither do my partners. We are just trying to solve the mystery of why the mummy whispered. You say you don't know about that. Well, as I said, if you tell me what you know and I tell you what I know, maybe we can accomplish something."

The boy scowls, then nods.

"Very well. What do you want to know?"

"First, why do you call Ra-Orkon your grandfather? He's three thousand years old."

"Ra-Orkon is ancestor of the House of Hamid," the olive skinned boy says proudly. "Three thousand years ago, kings from Libya went to Egypt to rule. Ra-Orkon was a great prince. He was killed because he tried to be just and fair, and was buried very secret to hide him from enemies. His family go back to Libya and to-day are House of Hamid.

"All this is revealed to my father by the beggar magician, Sardon, who has the gift of tongues and of prophecy and knows the past, the present, and the future. He tells my father that Ra-Orkon is being sent far away to the land of the barbarians and will never sleep in peace unless he is brought back and put to rest in proper way.

"My father is ill, so he send Achmed Bey, the manager of his business, as guardian, and me, Hamid, his oldest son, to bring Ra-Orkon back to his home."

Hamid of Libya pauses for breath. Another time Fate might have taken exception to being called a barbarian, but just now she thought she is beginning to get the idea. Professor Brevil had said that some Libyan rug dealer merchant, named Achmed, had tried to persuade her to give up Ra-Orkon. She had sent the fellow off. Unable to make persuasion work, it now looks as if Achmed and Hamid have been planning to try to get the mummy in another way.

"So!" she says. "You were hanging around trying to get a chance to steal Ra-Orkon yourself."

"Barbarian professor will not give back my many-times great-grandfather," Hamid said, eyes flashing. "So Achmed and I, we plan to steal him if we can. It is our duty to bring his spirit peace. Achmed disguises himself as a gardener and pays the brothers who take care of this place to let him pretend to be one of them. That way he could always be close. Professor does not notice. As Achmed says, no one looks at gardener. Besides Achmed disguises himself."

"Then it was Achmed, not a real gardener, who grabbed you this morning!" Fate exclaimed. "Your own guardian grabbed you!"

"Yes," Hamid agreed. "He shout to me in Arabic to bite him. I do so and he let me go free. He fool you all. He is very clever, Achmed."

It takes Fate a moment to digest this and to comprehend the fact that, all along, the trusted gardener had really been an impostor, a Libyan named Achmed, who wanted to steal Ra-Orkon for Hamid's father. While she is turning it over in her mind, Hamid whirls.

"Someone is outside!" he says. "I heard a truck stop."

He runs to the window that faces on to the driveway. Fate joins him. They see a battered blue truck in the driveway, and two burly men descending from it with the apparent intention of coming straight towards the terrace outside the museum room.

"The same men!" Hamid hisses. "They are the ones who stole Ra-Orkon. I saw them place a wrapped figure in the truck a few minutes ago. And when I saw the house was empty I entered the museum. I found the case, but Ra-Orkon was gone."

"They're coming this way," Fate mutters. The men look like unpleasant customers. "I wonder what they want?"

"We must hide," Hamid says swiftly. "Perhaps they will steal something else. If we hide where we can hear what they say, we may learn where they took Ra-Orkon."

"That sounds good, but where?" Fate looks round. "No place to hide," she says. "Not in here, anyway. Of course if we run outside and hide in the bushes—"

"Then we cannot hear what is said!" Hamid objects. "Quickly! The mummy case! The case of Ra-Orkon. It is empty. It will hold us. They will never guess someone is in it."

"That's r-right," Fate agrees. Once again she feels the tingling in the base of her spine and shivers. But her pride soon overcomes her fear as she once again thinks of outdoing Hayate and having Nanoha fuss over her.

Already the smaller boy darts across the room to the mummy case and lowers himself into it. "Swiftly," he calls in a whisper. "Come, there is room." He presses himself against the side.

The men are just outside now. Fate doesn't hesitate. She squeezes in beside Hamid. Together they pull the top of the case back over them. Fate uses a pencil stub to hold one corner up so there would be a crack through which they could get air and hear what is said.

They are just in time. An instant after the lid is in place, the door opens and they hear the sound of heavy footsteps.

"You got the strap, Jirou?" a voice asks.

"I got it," says a second gruff voice. "Listen, Nobu, I'm pretty sore at that customer. Why didn't he say what he wanted in the first place? Making us come back for this old box! I got a good notion to raise the price on him."

"I got the same notion, Jirou," the first voice says. "We'll see he pays us—or else. Well, get the strap round it."

An instant later, to the consternation of Fate and Hamid, the mummy case is jostled and one end lifted from the floor. Apparently a strap is being passed around it and pulled tight to hold the lid in place. If Fate had not jammed the pencil in place to leave an air crack, they would have been sealed inside.

"They came back to steal the mummy case, too!" Hamid whispers to Fate in the pitch darkness. "What shall we do?"

"I don't want to tangle with those thugs," Fate whispers back. "We'd better lie low. We have a chance to find out who sent them here in the first place. They'll take us right to him. When he takes the lid off, we'll bust out and start running!"

"Hamid is not afraid," the Libyan boy said stoutly.

"Neither am I," Fate tells him. But she certainly felt extremely nervous as the case was lifted and the two men carried it outside.

And - Fate couldn't help thinking how this situation wouldn't be nearly as bad or claustophobic if it had been Nanoha she was trapped inside an ancient Egyptian coffin with, rather then Hamid.

'_In fact it would be down right cozy_.' She concludes in her mind, a small sigh escaping through her lips as she imagines Nanohas body snuggled up agaisnt her front, her softness rather then the sninuey points of the Arab boy.

"Did you say something?" Hamid asks.

"Who me? N-no, not a word." Fate can feel the blush on her face and is thankful for a brief moment that Hamid cannot see it because they were now almost completely in the dark.

"Dratted thing is mighty heavy," the one called Jirou grumbles.

"Like lead," Nobu agrees. "Come on, help me heave it into the truck."

The mummy case is lifted and thrown. It lands heavily inside the truck.

"That'll do it," the deeper voice grunts. "Now let's get going. Wonder what anybody wants with a mummy and an old wooden case, anyway?"

"Some people will collect anything," the other voice says. "Anyway, he's going to have to pay us for making two trips. He's not getting this thing until he does. We'll take it to the hideout and store it until he agrees to pay us extra. Let's go!"

The truck door slams. A moment later the truck starts up the hill, away from Professor Brevil's home. Tightly strapped inside the case, Hamid and Fate are being taken—where?

Hisakawa Steers the old Rolls Royce around a tight corner as he and Nanoha now sitting up front with him approach Professor Brevil's home. Just then a battered old truck with scratched and rusty blue paint came barreling around the narrow corner taking up much of the road. Hisakawa grips the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles turning white, as he swerves to avoid a collision, and fights to stay on the bit of road left for the Rolls. He angles the car towards the edge of a steep drop on the passenger side, the tires skidding along the edge of the road, sending bits of rock and gravel cascading down the side of the canyon to the depths below. Nanoha squeezes her eyes closed, praying that somehow the car will stop safely... and finally it does.

"Are you alright miss?" Hisakawa turns in his seat to look at Nanoha, her face pale, sitting next to him. His breath is haggard and sweat is running down his face.

"Y-yes thank you Hisakawa-san." Nanoha stops to think of their close call and of the reckless truck driver. Her blood begins to boil.

"If I ever see that truck again I am going to blast it - and who ever is sitting in it's driver seat to kingdom come, and then a bit further then that."

"Yes miss, I'll look forward to that, I think." Hisakawa gently puts the car back into Drive and eases back onto the road heading down to the Professors house.

* * *

**A/N:** Unlike my other story... Nanoha and Fate (and Hayate, let's not forget Hayate) will be quickly reunited. Thank you for any reviews. I always enjoy them, and I always reply to each of them as well. Again I should mention that I have no rights and earn no $$ from the MGLN world, nor from the series of books "The Three Detectives" that this story is based on among other old time teen detect mystery series of the 40's, 50's and 60's.

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**OMAKE THEATRE:**

**Nanoha** \- "Hey, how come I have hardly had any part in this story so far but to be a tag along? ... and when I finally do get out on my own I am almost run off the road and I get all pissy mad?"

**Hayate** \- "Well... you are the White Devil and it is standard to include that in every story ever written with your character in it."

**Fate** \- "Ah Hayate, I wouldn't go there if I were you..."

**Hayate **\- "HAHAHA what's that Fate-chan? Is my cute blondie afraid of a lil' white dev -"

**Nanoha** \- "Ah that felt so good." Nanoha wipes her hands together satisfactorily. "Say Fate-chan, want to come over for some Strawberry Cake?"

**Fate looks at where Hayate had been standing -** "I would love to," and then lowering her voice to a sexy timbre, "my lil' White Devil. Purrrrrrrr."

**Nanoha** \- "Somehow that name sounds so good when you say it Fate."

_The next morning at the Yagami household._

**An annoyed Signum ** \- "Vita, I've been calling Hayate to breakfast for the past ten minutes. Go fetch Hayate for breakfast, and tell her its getting cold!"

**A few moments later Vita comes back to the kitchen.**

**Vita** \- "Signum, Hayate's bed hasn't been slept in, she's been out all night!"

**Signum** \- "Why that lil' _*_ _!_ Devil!"


End file.
